


25 Lives

by rarmaster



Series: YWKON [9]
Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: F/M, Mostly Fluff with a side of Angst, Reincarnation, Soulmates, XC2 AU, after which it's only alluded to and not depicted, also human experimentation is lacking from the first 16 chapters, blanket warnings for death / war / human experimentation, but those are only relevant themes in Some of these oneshots, content warnings in authors notes; delivered on a chapter to chapter basis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-07-11 19:08:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 58,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19933051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rarmaster/pseuds/rarmaster
Summary: I don't blame you; I'll never burn as brilliantly as you.It's only fair that I should be the one to chase you across ten, twenty-five, a hundred lifetimesuntil I find the one where you'll return to me.Kratos Aurion only loved one woman in his entire life. He loved her so much, that the world he created kept giving birth to her, again and again and again--(YWKON)





	1. the Architect and his Wife

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to 25 Lives, which is a Kranna fic for YWKON, a major ToS/XC2 AU crossover of mine, which takes the ToS cast and places them in a world with XC2's worldbuilding elements, mostly regarding blades. You do not have to read YWKON to understand 25 Lives, though it will (has already, actually) spoiled a major twist in YWKON itself. Oh well.
> 
> [Information about the worldbuilding / the concept of blades can be found here!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20959580) The main thing to keep in mind for this fic is that Kratos is a blade and Anna is human (in every installment but the first, anyway), and that blades regularly live multiple lives with no memories retained between each lifetime. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is wild, and there's a reason I stole its lore and ran.
> 
> Concept / quote / fic title (as well as a few upcoming chapter titles) taken from the ever famous [25 Lives by tongari](http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/25-lives/)
> 
> content warnings will be handled on a chapter to chapter basis, because many oneshots in here don't need them, but also there are at least three where someone dies since what's the point of playing with reincarnation if you don't cover that, you know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter requires no content warnings

“Hey, Kratos,” Anna says, grabbing his arm and pulling him into a corner between market stalls. Her tone is eager, almost playful, but he’s so focused on the action that he does not really hear it, more worried about sharpening his senses habitually to check for threats.

“Did you see someone?” he asks, urgently, holding her tightly out of harm’s way as he peeks his head out briefly. He has not heard the distinct clinking of armor and heavy footfalls that signify Desians, nor does he feel a mana signature that would align with a half-elf. Actually there might be one, distantly, but not close, and they can go about their business so long as it does not interfere with Kratos’.

“No, no,” Anna laughs. “Stop being so paranoid, holy shit.”

“And what else was I supposed to think about you pulling me aside, suddenly?” he counters, somewhat bitter. They _are_ fugitives, after all.

“I just forgot to tell you something, is all,” Anna says, brightly. As frustrating as this is, Kratos cannot find it in him to be upset. He loves her, and her spontaneity, and her smile is somewhat contagious. Besides, if they are not actually in danger, he can relax. It’s easy enough, when her hands find his arms.

( _Strange as it is, to find himself as comfortable with her as he is. He can count on one hand the other people who he is this comfortable with—really, he only needs two fingers, now, and given where Mithos is and where Kratos isn’t, he can likely only count one._

_He misses, sometimes, Mithos’s hand on his wrist to get him to relax, Yuan clinging to his shirt so he won’t lose him, Martel’s back pressed to his both of them trusting the other to watch each other’s blind spots._

_Anna is similar, Anna is different. He loves her all the same._ )

So, Kratos sighs, fond, as he grips Anna’s arms in return and looks down at her. “Yes?” he asks. “What is it?”

To his immense surprise she answers by standing on her toes and pressing a kiss to his lips, using her grip on his arms to balance herself.

It’s not a very good kiss, truthfully. Warm, chaste, very short. She’s done after only a second or two, plopping herself back down on her feet. Kratos blinks a few times. It was happening and then over so fast he really barely had time to process it.

“Oh,” he says.

Anna tilts her head, squinting a little up at him. It’s hard to say if she’s disappointed or nervous or what.

“Was that… okay?” she asks, and as soon as she’s speaking Kratos is able to read her properly as determined. Nervous, but not shying away. Willing to press, just a little, rather let her attempts bounce off his immediate stupidity and give up. He likes that about her.

Shit she asked him a question.

“Hang on,” he says, needing the time to think but not wanting to lose her.

She rolls her eyes, but despite her exasperation he thinks she’s still fond, so that’s something. “Take your time,” she tells him. She _sounds_ patient enough.

Well.

 _Was_ that okay, Kratos?

He certainly didn’t mind. He probably wouldn’t mind if she did it again, actually. But he finds himself digging in his heels regardless, scared, a little, used to turning away so he cannot get hurt or hurt someone ( _and he does not want to hurt her, never her, hurting her would kill him_ ) because it’s about more than the kiss, isn’t it?

Around them, sellers shout out their wares, people bustle about the streets, footsteps constant under the sound of chatter. It is not quiet. But here, between these two market stalls, shielded from the sun in soft shadows, it is still, and secluded. Anna grips him a little tighter.

“Kratos, I can see you digging yourself a hole,” she sings, somewhat disapproving. “Stop digging and come back up here to answer my question.”

“Sorry,” he says on reflex. He makes himself focus on her eyes again. Brown and endless and beautiful, glinting playfully if impatiently. He _does_ want this, he thinks, but…

Doesn’t she deserve someone better?

“ _Kratos,_ ” Anna says, eyebrows raised. “You can say no if you want, but don’t keep me waiting.”

“It’s just… Are _you_ sure about this?” he asks of her, squeezing her arms. “After all, I’m—”

“Angel of Cruxis, murderer of thousands, yeah, I know, I’ve heard your self-depreciating spiel before, you dumbass,” Anna interjects, somewhat frustrated, but still teasing. It’s loving, when she tilts her head some more and smiles up at him. “You’re also the man who saved my life, bought me ice cream because I said I hadn’t had any in years, and a _huge, adorable_ dork.”

She’s blushing, a little. Kratos is too.

“Well,” he says. “Then, if you are okay with it.”

Anna just _lights up._

“Then I can I kiss you again?” she asks, eagerly, bouncing on her toes as she leans towards him.

Kratos laughs, a little. “Yes,” he tells her, and he meets her halfway.

( _It feels almost stolen, a taste of happiness that he should not be allowed to have._

_Neither of them have any idea that in five years she will be dead._

_In twenty, their son will save the world._

_In a thousand, he will become a god of another._

_But for now… it’s just them, nestled between two little market stalls, trying to remember how exactly this kissing thing works because they’re both tremendously out of practice._ )


	2. the world is new

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter requires no content warnings

The world is new.

The blades are young.

The Architect does not yet realize how many familiar faces have been reflected onto the surface of the world he created, because he has chosen to stay out of the affairs of this world, and could not leave Derris-Kharlan even if he wanted to. He doesn’t mind, though. It’s better this way, he thinks.

( _He knows, much to well, what someone like him could do if he were allowed to lead an entire world._ )

But this is not a story about him.

It is a story about the blade reflected in his image.

And a story about the woman he loved so much the world gave birth to her, over and over and over again, even though he never would have asked it to.

The world is new.

The blades are young.

Anna’s brother comes home from work one day with a surprise.

“Anna!” he calls, shouldering open the front door of the house they share eagerly enough that crashes against the wall and rattles all of the windows. “You’ll _never_ guess what I managed to get my hands on!”

He sounds absolutely delighted and like he’s about to explode with the news, so of _course_ Anna drops everything that she’s doing and vaults down the hallway to meet him in the front room. When she gets there Matthew is bolting their front door shut, looking fervent with both excitement and what… _might_ be paranoia. Anna laughs a little as she watches him, eagerness burning in her heart.

“What’d you snag?” she asks, as he finally is satisfied that all the doors and windows are closed enough and he brings his bag over to the kitchen table.

He drops it and grins up at her, digging into it.

“Close your eyes.”

“Hell no.”

Matthew laughs. Anna glares.

“Fine, fine,” Matthew relents, and he pulls out what he’s been hiding from her—

Two core crystals.

One’s red. One’s blue.

Anna lights up, grinning from ear-to-ear, as she looks between them and her brother.

“How…?” she begins.

Neither of them have enough money to register as official drivers, so either he stole them, or—

“Found ‘em, actually,” Matthew admits, chuckling a little like he _wishes_ he had stolen them. “Wouldn’t have even seen ‘em had I not tripped on my face trying to take a shortcut through the woods. Felt kinda like…” His eyes go vague, for a moment, as his hands idly close his bag back up and shove it out of the way. “I’unno. Destiny?”

Anna laughs. “Yeah right.”

Except… there’s a kind of _pulling,_ from that red core crystal. She cannot seem to get her attention off of it. Like it’s calling to her. She only realizes she’s started reaching towards it when Matthew laughs and she shoots her gaze up at him. He looks smug.

“You sure about that?” he asks.

Anna glares again, pulling her hand back.

“Shut up,” she spits.

“Nah, go ahead,” Matthew tells her, leaning on the table, his grin shit-eating and infuriating. “You pick first.”

Now Anna just wants to spite him, and maybe this bullshit destiny thing he suggested so she folds her arms over her chest instead and stares him down.

“No way.”

( _Mostly she just wants to piss_ him _off, which is a shame because she really, really wants that red core crystal._ )

Matthew glares at her for a second, then shrugs. “Fine, whatever,” he says. “I guess I’ll go first. And here I was, being a _nice_ brother and letting _you_ get first pick!” He shakes his head, all dramatics, and Anna thinks maybe she’ll just punch him instead.

But before she can do that she has to fumble to catch the core crystal that Matthew just _lobbed at her face._ She almost drops the damn thing.

“What the fuck!!” Anna spits, heart hammering.

And then there’s a flare of ether and a flash of red, followed shortly by something warm and gently confused taking up residence in the back of her mind. Anna takes a step back as the blade— _her_ blade—forms, blinking up at him.

He’s a looker, for starters. Eyes as red as his ether and hair just a few shades paler, a strong jaw and broad shoulders, and most importantly a shy little smile on his lips that Anna is _immediately_ and _completely_ gone for. She hates Matthew? Did he _know_? He can’t have but she knows he’s laughing at her right now and that’s not _fair._

_(The worst part is this feels… Right, somehow._

_Like coming home._ )

“Hello,” her blade says, gentle. “My name is Kratos.”

“Anna,” Anna supplies, feeling kind of breathless. This is so dumb. She had always thought about how she was going to make a _good first impression_ if she ever got her hands on a blade, and instead she can’t even think straight because the blade she got landed with is _irresistibly cute_.

“See?” Matthew says. “See how much you would have hated me if I’d end up with him?”

Kratos blinks. That confusion that isn’t hers in the back of Anna’s mind bubbles a little stronger.

“Shut up,” Anna says, hoping she isn’t blushing as badly as she thinks she is. “Matthew I am _going_ to kill you.”

“I…” Kratos says, slowly, squinting as he looks between his driver and her brother. “Forgive me, but I _would_ appreciate knowing what exactly is going on, here. Anna, who is this?”

Oh the way he says her name is _also not fair._ Anna bites down her whine ( _the way he’s defaulting to polite is also kind of adorable, and maybe that’s just blade etiquette, seeing as they don’t have memories, but it’s still killing her_ ) and introduces Matthew to her blade. “That’s my shithead brother,” she says.

“Ah,” Kratos says. For someone with no memories, he seems to understand, somehow.

“Dunno why you’re so upset, Anna,” Matthew crows, grinning wide. “You’re like, the luckiest girl alive right now.”

“Shut up shut _up_!” Anna hisses.

“What,” Kratos says.

Matthew opens his mouth—

“Tell him and I’ll kill you,” Anna promises.

—“My sister thinks you’re cute,” Matthew says.

“ _Architect,_ ” Anna swears.

“ _Oh,_ ” Kratos says, a soft little note of realization.

It’s also incredibly cute and Anna _does not know_ how she is going to _live like this._ Actually, maybe she’ll just—

Kratos’ hand on her arm stops her from going anywhere.

“Maybe don’t punch your brother,” he suggests, softly.

Anna pushes him off and glares at him. “Hey! I thought you’re supposed to be on _my_ side!”

Kratos puts his hands up. Matthew rolls with laughter. This sucks this sucks this sucks this _suuuuuucks._

“I’m just saying,” Kratos says, “that your brother hasn’t exactly done anything wrong.”

“Hasn’t done anything—” Anna begins, and then scoffs. “He’s _embarrassing me_ ,” she says, gesturing wildly at her brother as he pounds his fist against the table, laughing so hard he’s wheezing. “How do _you_ feel, huh, Kratos? You’ve been awake all of two minutes and have to deal with the fact your driver _thinks you’re cute_ and your driver’s brother _is a jackass_.”

“Hmm.” Kratos considers it a moment—like, _genuinely considers it—_ before he shrugs. “There are worse situations I can imagine being in,” he decides.

Anna can’t tell if he’s smug or being legit—even with that emotion bleed going on— _oh Architect he’s felt exactly what he’s doing to her this whole time, huh_. She gets so horrified by that realization she completely forgets to worry about whether Kratos is smug or not. She just buries her face in her hands instead and tries not to have a heart attack.

“Perhaps your brother should awaken his blade,” Kratos suggests, and now he _does_ feel a little smug, like for sure. His eyes are fixed on the blue core crystal that still sits on the kitchen table, and, there’s no way he should be able to recognize it, but there is something distinctly Knowing burning in his eyes. “I think… Well.” He pauses and turns to Anna, his smile somewhat playful. “I have a hunch.”

She’s known this man all of ten minutes, but she’s _pretty sure_ that expression reads like she’s about to get payback, so she fixes a grin on Matthew.

“Yeah, Matt,” she coos. “Why don’t you awaken your blade?”

Matthew rolls his eyes. He reaches out and picks up the blue core crystal deliberately. “Don’t look so smug!” he boasts, as the blue ether ties itself around him. “Watch, it’s gonna be— _oh fucking shit.”_ He trips over himself when the blade forms. “ _Architect,_ fuckin—”

“Hmm,” his blade says. He’s a man with long blue hair tied back and a jawline that could cut glass. He’s gorgeous, and _exactly_ Matthew’s type. Anna bursts out laughing, delighted.

“THAT’S NOT FAIR??” Mattheew splutters. He looks like he’s gonna faint. “THAT’S NOT EVEN CLOSE TO FAIR.”

“Can I get an explanation, maybe,” Matthew’s blade says.

“It appears our drivers have crushes on us,” Kratos says.

“Ah.”

Only the sight of Matthew having to _sit down in a fucking chair_ to catch his breath keeps Anna from remembering her own embarrassment at this situation. Hey, at least if they’re suffering, they’re suffering together.

Kratos sends Matthew’s blade a look that’s somewhat fond, then reaches across the table to shake the man’s hand. “I’m Kratos,” he says.

“Yuan,” the man introduces himself. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“I feel the same,” Kratos says. He sends a look at his driver, fond. “This is almost… familiar, somehow.”

“Isn’t it?” Yuan agrees.

( _Anna still thinks this being some kind of Destiny Thing is bullshit, but the longer the four of them are together, the more readily she’ll admit—_

 _Alright, yeah. Maybe it was meant to be._ )


	3. coffee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter requires no content warnings

Kratos blinks at the woman standing on the other side of the counter.

“I’m, sorry,” he says. “Can you repeat your order?”

She rolls her eyes dramatically. “Come on, half coffee, half cream, how hard is that?”

Kratos blinks again.

“I suppose it isn’t _hard_ ,” he admits. “I’m just… You came to a coffee shop… to order something that isn’t even coffee?”

“It’s coffee!”

“It will taste nothing like coffee.”

“That’s the point!”

Kratos blinks again, stares for a moment. He’s never met someone more ridiculous in his life. Or at least, not in this lifetime. It’s not like he remembers any previous ones. Still.

“You’re… incredible,” he says, finally, not sure what else to call her.

She grins. “Thank you.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

“Can I have my coffee please.”

Kratos keeps eye contact with her as she sighs with exasperation, leaning on his counter by now. He _does_ start moving to make her order, though. She is a paying customer. However, as he pulls a mug out and retrieves the cream, he can’t help but continue his commentary on the abomination he is about to make.

“This isn’t coffee, it’s a sin against god,” he grumbles, pointedly.

She laughs, shifting from exasperated to amused in a blink. Her grin is kind of cocky, incredibly playful. She leans further onto the counter. “And how do _you_ know how the Architect likes his coffee?” she asks. “He could like it the same way I do. Maybe he’s up—wherever he is—laughing right now, because _finally,_ someone understands how coffee is _meant_ to be made.”

Kratos rolls his eyes. “I’m quite certain he would call this an abomination, as any sane man would,” he counters.

“What?” she laughs, eyebrows raised, clearly just fucking with him. “You tellin’ me you _asked_ him?”

“No, but I assume he has taste, unlike the woman I’m currently talking to.”

That makes her laugh a lot louder, and Kratos has to struggle to keep himself from smiling.

He finishes up her “coffee”, and passes it to her. “That’ll be 200 gald.”

She forks over the money, still grinning. “Thank you.”

Kratos sighs, somewhat disappointed, as he watches her go. How can _anyone_ be satisfied with coffee like that? Ridiculous. But his disappointment is drowned by a soft bubble of fondness, amusement—definitely at Kratos’ expense—and a tug in his resonance link tells him his driver’s approaching.

“It’s just coffee, Kratos,” his driver, his husband, the man he’s running this coffee shop with (a _rather mundane, but peaceful life, which Kratos actually kind of likes_ ), tells him as he snakes a hand around Kratos’ waist and kisses him on the cheek.

Kratos blushes, embarrassed by public displays of affection, as always. “I did _not_ sell her coffee,” he insists, still clinging to his baffled disbelief.

“Hey, as long as she was paying, you could have sold her the entire carton of cream.”

Kratos sighs and lets it go. Chances are he won’t be seeing her again, anyway.


	4. train

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and now we've hit the point where i'm dragging in other characters (mostly from xenoblade / other tales games), today featuring melia (xenoblade) and pascal (tales of graces) ([pic refs here](https://rarsneezes.dreamwidth.org/5926.html#cutid1))
> 
> this chapter requires no content warnings

“Melia,” Kratos says gently, in warning.

The Sylvaranti princess turns to send him a Look, as if he is not her blade and appointed guard, as if her brother the crown prince and her father the emperor would not be distraught should anything happen to her, as if it was not _his_ duty to make sure she was safe, and as if a lone train car in which there is only one other passenger isn’t exactly the kind of place for princesses to get assassinated.

Alright, perhaps Kratos is overthinking it, a little. But all it takes is one knife to the ribs and then they are both dead.

“I highly doubt a simple conversation with the woman we will be sharing a train car with for the next three hours could possibly be dangerous,” Melia says in hushed tones, so as not to disturb their companion ( _who appears to have been attempting to and failing at taking a nap for at least the past half hour_ ). “And if it is, well, is that not what you are here for?”

Kratos wants to tell her yes, but that doesn’t mean she should be reckless, but also. This barely counts as being reckless. So instead he just says nothing and doesn’t stop her when she gets to her feet and crosses the train car to approach the woman ( _whose luggage tells him she’s either named Anna or Pascal, unless her things have been handed down from a relative._ )

Despite their status, Melia and Kratos have elected to take the same kind of transportation as any other person would, which means the train car looks as any other train car might—eight groups of two benches facing each other and separated by a table, four on each side of the train. The woman sits towards the front, facing them, and Melia and Kratos had taken their seats towards the back. Melia moves now to slide into the bench across the table from the woman, her back to Kratos, and Kratos waits, not seeing the need to get involved in the conversation.

“Would it be alright if I sat here?” Melia asks, though she has already sat down.

The woman blinks as she pulls herself more upright than she had been before, rubbing her neck likely to work out kinks from how she’d been leaning against the window. “Yeah, knock yourself out,” she says, like she really, genuinely has no idea who she’s talking to, and Melia’s annoyance strikes a fire in Kratos’ chest that Kratos calmly puts out with reassurance, because really it _is_ better if she has no clue. It means the likeliness of this turning into an assassination attempt are low.

( _There is no reason for Kratos to expect an assassination attempt other than that he is just generally worried. Protecting the princess of Sylvarant is an important job, and other than that, that is his driver! It is natural for a blade to worry after their driver, is it not?_ )

“Forgive me,” Melia says, after a moment. “I did not wake you, did I?”

“No, it’s alright,” the woman assures her. “I always tell myself ‘it’s fine, I can just sleep on the train’, and then promptly forget that I have never managed to fall asleep on a train in my life, so. That’s on me.” She pops her neck, lets out a satisfied sigh. “I’ll catch up on sleep when we get where we’re going, I suppose. Pascal will need to, too.”

Ah, so her name is Anna, then.

“Oh,” Melia says, and looks rightly startled. “Are you not traveling alone?”

Kratos hums in approval, not that anyone can hear it. A good question to ask.

“Nah, I’m with my girlfriend!” Anna says, delightedly. “Pascal—she’s the reason I barely slept last night, actually. She’s- brilliant, smartest woman I know, _incredibly scattered._ Getting her to pack is a nightmare, so I had to do most of that for her. And then wake up ridiculously early just to get us out of the house on time to make the train.”

“Ah.” Melia’s tone suggests well enough that she’s only politely interested, and Kratos tries not to laugh, because it seems Melia has forgotten how little she actually enjoys conversations with most other people. She gets nervous about being unscripted, and this Anna seems to have thrown her for one or several loops. His amusement meets her annoyance ( _had Melia been able to shoot him a glare without turning around, Kratos would be on the receiving end of an incredible one right now_ ), and Kratos just smiles.

“What about you?” Anna asks, either oblivious of or not caring about Melia’s hesitance ( _in her defense, Melia hides that well_ ). Her eyes flicker towards Kratos, who raises his hand in a polite wave. “Who’s the guy you’re with?” Her eyebrows waggle. “Your boyfriend?”

“Oh of course not,” Melia answers, and if Kratos did not share her disdain for the notion he might be offended for the hasty disgusted tone she says it with. “He’s my. He’s just a friend.”

“Your blade, though, I assume,” Anna presses.

Melia nods. “Yes, well,” she says, and then changes the subject. “Your girlfriend—where is she now? I haven’t seen her the whole train ride.”

“Oh, well, she hates sitting still,” Anna explains, with the speed of someone used to giving the explanation and the joy of someone who doesn’t mind giving it much at all. She must love her girlfriend a lot. “And she loves engineering and trains and things, so she’s probably at the front of the train, now, bothering th—”

The train lurches, suddenly. Kratos grabs onto the table in front of him to steady himself and then immediately push himself to his feet once his footing is sure, though Melia looks to be alright. Knocked over for a moment, but straightening now. The emotion bleed sings annoyed and confused but not hurt.

Anna, meanwhile, has a look of horror across her face that very slowly becomes long-suffering exasperation.

“Re-wiring the train, instead of bothering the engineer, I guess!” she amends her previous statement, with a bitter smile, as she pushes herself to her feet. “Can you—just, watch my luggage? Please? Pascal is so bad at sweet-talking herself out of a tight spot and she just landed herself in a _fucking big one_.”

“Um, I suppose,” Melia begins, and that’s all Anna needs to hear before she is gone.

Kratos finishes crossing the totally still train car, now, to check on his driver.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she assures him, brushing him off. She must have felt his worry before he could ask. “Not injured. Just frustrated, I suppose. That woman…”

Melia trails off. Kratos hums, resting his hand on the seat back behind Melia. “Her girlfriend sounds like something else,” he muses.

“Something else indeed,” Melia snaps, still annoyed. “I hope whatever she did to the train gets fixed, soon. I fear Kallian might tear the country apart in his worry if we arrive late.”


	5. and in our times together, i have many bad ideas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **content warnings: major character death**

The pain is sharp, all-consuming, and for a long moment, it’s all Anna can really think about as Kratos drags her out of the line of fire and into cover. The moments previous play back in her mind in a blur— _they’re trapped they can’t get out—trust the Sylvaranti military to employ blades with_ guns _—too risky for all ten of them to get out safely—if someone could just draw the line of fire—Kratos reaching for her but it was too late—_

“Sorry,” Anna laughs, weakly, at her own stupidity.

“Shh,” Kratos scolds. He must deem this place safe enough—Anna has no idea what it looks like, when she opens her eyes it’s all blurry except for Kratos, and even looking at him is almost too much effort—because he stops dragging her, props her head up under one knee as his hands reach for the wound, but. Even if he could stop the bleeding. Then what? There’s still twenty blades between them and getting to safety, and. Anna can feel the blood hot and sticky clinging to her skin and her shirt, and the wound is hot and painful and _so so so close to her heart._

“Sorry,” she repeats. “That was dumb, huh?”

“I have never known you to have a good idea in your entire life,” Kratos says, all fondness. He gives up on trying to stop the bleeding, probably more aware than she is how useless it will be, how little time she— _the both of them_ —have left.

“Hey!”

“Anna.”

And there’s no arguing with that, really, no arguing when she’s bleeding out because she thought she could _throw herself in front of a bullet and survive it_ and that’s kind of, like, the epitome of dumb ideas.

“You’re right,” she admits. _Architect,_ it hurts to talk. It hurts to _breathe_.

So she doesn’t, for a moment. She just lets Kratos hold her, one arm wrapped under her shoulders, the other lifting a hand to brush hair out of her face. Her vision swims, as she tries to take in his face— _that’s fine, so much of his hair is covering his eyes, anyway_ —but the emotion bleed sings with love and regret, a touch of grief.

“You should have let me draw their attention, instead,” he scolds, gently. “I would have survived a wound like this.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not like I thought about it, I just did it,” Anna answers, with a little huff, though she’s only mad at herself. She stares up at the man she loves so much, his grief meeting hers and rebounding. She can’t _not_ touch him, right now, needs to touch him, one more time, so she raises her hand and somewhat clumsily reaches up to press it against his cheek. Everything’s still kind of blurry, though each inhale she takes is sharp and painful. His face seems to be haloed by red ether. A distant part of her registers that as probably not a good thing, but—

He leans into her touch, his skin unbearably warm against her palm. She doesn’t pull away.

“Sorry,” she says again. If she had the energy to stroke his cheek, she would, but she’s barely got enough energy to keep her hand pressed to his face to begin with, let alone keep her eyes open. “I really am. What… a shitty way to go, huh? Sorry. I’m sorry.” She laughs, broken. He doesn’t speak, but Kratos is like that. Always slow, especially with his words. And how can she expect him to know what to say, at a time like this? So she keeps talking, to fill a silence she can’t stand, even though it hurts and her breath is faint and she can’t keep her eyes open anymore. “Thanks for—making it incredible, up to this point, Kratos. Thanks for everything…”

His grip on her shoulder tightens. It’s the last thing she really registers.

“Thank _you_ …” she thinks she hears him whisper.

And then it’s all black.

( _She isn’t conscious to see him decide Fuck This, Actually. She isn’t conscious to see the moment where he decides he isn’t going to lose her, isn’t going to let them both die that easy. She isn’t conscious when he gets to his feet and slings her over his shoulder and starts walking, even as his physical form starts blowing away in the wind._

_He doesn’t make it out._

_Neither of them do._

_But he tried._

_And that matters. At least to him._ )


	6. in which anna escapes execution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter requires no content warnings

Anna paces the length of her cell, back and forth and back and forth, because there’s not exactly anything _better_ to do. She counts her steps, one two three four five six seven this isn’t how she wanted to die, and this certainly wasn’t the day she would have picked, but she’s been over every inch of this cell and there is no way out, no one coming to rescue her. She spoke up against an oppressive system so of course they opted to silence her, even though all she ever said was that maybe, just _maybe,_ humanity should think a little more about the way they’re treating blades. She’s tired of watching them being used by a corrupt military, tired of them being nothing more than cannon fodder in a pointless war. But she is nothing more than a peasant, a fugitive, not a soldier not a politician just a woman with a voice and she spoke up but that wasn’t good enough because the assholes in charge don’t want to _listen_ and the price she pays is death, apparently.

Today fucking sucks.

Anyway.

One two three for five six seven eight—there’s a noise down the hallway. It’s the dead of night, so it’s way too early for the executioner to be coming to get her—her death is slated for dawn ( _and like hell she’d just sleep until they came and got her_ ) so. Another prisoner to throw in the dungeon, perhaps? A guard doing rounds? It’s a blade, whoever it is, she can see the red glow cast by their ether lines.

Hey, she recognizes this blade.

He was there when she was arrested.

And he’s alone.

“What do you want?” Anna asks, crossing her arms and glaring through the bars of the cell at him, foot tapping with all the energy she has in her. “Here to—” She isn’t sure, actually, but lets her mouth run. “What? Just, kill me and get it over with? I’m not good enough for a public execution?”

It occurs to her that there’s a chance that—if that _is_ what he’s here to do—then there’s a chance he’s only doing it because he was told to, by his driver, or someone else in charge. Maybe she should make use of—

“I’m here to let you go,” he interrupts.

“What,” Anna says.

Making good on his promise, he retrieves a ring of keys from his belt and starts looking for the one to her cell. What the fuck?

“What for?” Anna presses, confused, a little suspicious. She aches for the knife she normally keeps in her belt, but obviously that was confiscated. “Your lot’s got everyone convinced I’m guilty of _treason,_ and I doubt anyone upstairs changed their mind on that front.”

“No, they haven’t,” the blade admits, quiet, still looking for the key. Does he not know which one it is? “But I don’t think you should be in here.”

Confusion becomes curiosity. Anna takes a step closer to the bars, peering at him. It’s hard to read his face with his head down like that, his hair hiding most of his expression as he searches for the key he needs.

“Why not?” she asks.

“Because the things you said… the things you’re trying to do… I think they’re right,” he whispers. “Blades getting their own say in things. Having some actual rights. It’d be nice. Hell, it’d be nice if all that got done was the military stopped hoarding blades like me to be immediately assigned to a soldier instead of getting the _chance_ to live a life away from the war.” His hands shake, a little bit. “Not that… Not that I remember, of course. Any other life I’ve lived. But the records say I’ve been here a while.”

Anna blinks at him, anger and sadness coiling in her chest.

“Anyway.” He picks out a key, finally, fits it into the lock. The lock comes open easy, and he flashes her a tired smile as he opens the cell door for her. “Blades like me sure as hell aren’t going to change anything, so it’d be nice if a human like you did.”

“Oh,” Anna says, and nothing else, because she’s not sure what else to say. There’s a lot about that—a lot of faith he’s putting into her, a lot of things that are fucked up about what exactly put him in such a defeatist position. She steps out of the cell just so he can’t change his mind about that, at least, trying to find words but still not grasping them.

He nods his head for her to follow. “Here, I can sneak you out the guard’s entrance. I’m the only one on duty tonight.”

Fear grips a little at Anna’s heart as they walk, for his sake, not her own. ( _He’s way too sincere to be leading her to something worse than waiting around to be executed._ ) He’s putting a lot on the line for her. “Won’t that… get you in trouble?” she asks him, knowing how unfair the system he’s trapped in is, knowing how quickly humans love to make blades their scapegoats.

He laughs, though. “Oh, I’m not _officially_ on duty,” he tells her, flashing her a cocky little smile. “Just swapped with some guys who thought it was ridiculous they had to sit around and guard one prisoner when they could be out drinking. _They’ll_ be the ones in trouble for abandoning their posts.”

Anna laughs with him. Okay, that was smart as hell? Still.

“You could always come with me, you know,” she offers. “Live a life outside of the military, like you want.”

His small smile sobers immediately.

“No,” he says, tone guarded. “No, I- I really can’t.”

She eyes him carefully. “You sure? If… if your driver’s the problem—”

“ _No,_ ” he says, a little sharper. “She’s not- she’s not a bad person, and I wouldn’t want her _dead._ But if I tried to leave while still in resonance with her, that would… Well I don’t think it would end well, for either you or me.”

He looks so certain, and she feels so sorry for him. One of these days, she’s going to find a way to strangle the Architect for this fucked up system he created.

They stand in the guard’s room, now, and Anna’s freedom beckons from the cracked door to her right. She hesitates a second, though, wanting to offer freedom to him, one last time.

“I mean, I’m already going to be on the run, seeing as everyone’s so intent on killing me for saying war is bad and blades deserve better treatment, so like,” Anna says, staring at him. The unspoken offer should hang there well enough, but he either doesn’t catch it or is ignoring it, so she presses: “I think we could make it work, if you wanted. At least, I’m willing to try.”

He’s silent for a long, long moment, mulling it over like maybe he’s caught between what he wants and what he thinks he should do, and Anna prays desperately he makes the choice he wants, and not just the choice he thinks he has to make.

“It’s fine, I’ll stay,” he insists.

Anna sighs. But she can’t make him go, either. So she nods, and smiles, acknowledging his decision.

“Alright,” she says. “Tell me your name, though? Maybe I’ll get lucky and can snag you before the military does, next lifetime you have.”

He laughs. “I doubt it, but. It’s Kratos. My name is Kratos.”

Anna smiles one last time at him. “Thank you, Kratos,” she tells him, and she takes her leave.


	7. i prefer the ones where you kill me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **content warnings: major character death**

The thought that rings loudest in his mind is _not again,_ which is quite baffling, frankly.

Not again? What does that mean? If he were not a logical man, he might wonder if he is remembering something from a lifetime he has lived previously, but—he is a blade. Blades do not remember lives they have lived other than the ones they are currently living. It’s a technical impossibility for them. And yet.

And yet.

The forest, somehow, is familiar. ( _But then, won’t all forests look alike, if you are in the thick of them, trying to chase down a criminal_.) The rain, unending, soaking him to the bone? That, too, rings familiar. He’s cold to his core, cold and he doesn’t want to move, his legs like lead. He catches a flash of brown through the trees ahead. His target. The sight of her hair like a banner behind her fills his stomach with dread.

This is stupid.

“Kratos?” calls his driver, the emotion bleed concerned, voice almost snatched by the rain and the distance, except then his driver is close enough it doesn’t matter. “Y’alright? Not like you to get cold feet!”

“I’m fine,” Kratos replies, because—it’s true. He is the best of the best. Well recommended amongst the Sylvarant military, which is where his core crystal has been kept for the past few generations. And whatever it is, weighing down his core? It’s nothing. It shouldn’t be distracting him.

( _There’s a roaring in his ears, but it’s not just his ether, it’s—he isn’t sure, he cannot tell, but it’s in his bones and it will not leave him, it makes him sick to his stomach. How could this happen, how could it come to this, everything was going fine—_ )

“I’ll run ahead and catch her,” his driver tells him, shooting him a determined smile. “You do what you do best.”

( _When did killing criminals become the thing he was best at?_ )

It’s a blur of movement, rain pounding down, tree roots underneath, glimpses of the woman they chase from between the trees up ahead. Tight excitement for a job about to be well-done flows into him from his driver, almost drowning out the persistent dread that sits in his core, the images of blood on his hands on his sword on everything everywhere everywhere—

“Shit, _fuck_!” comes a screech from ahead, and then the sound of a scuffle, followed by the excitement in the emotion bleed being drowned out by annoyance then horror and then Kratos arrives on the scene, his driver on the ground—he does not think they are dead, but they definitely will not be moving soon—and the criminal he is meant to execute sitting on the ground like she just tripped and landed there, scrambling a little backwards, though there is no fear in her eyes, only sharp determination.

Kratos approaches, slowly. Heaven itself seems to weigh down on his shoulders, like it wants to crush him against the dirt, smother him rather than let him continue the path he is set on. It would be so easy, really. To go to his driver, instead. No one would blame him for wanting to protect them, for not wanting to risk the death of them both. It wouldn’t even be that large of a lie, to say that he feared their safety too greatly to continue his mission, and it would be a lie that many would believe.

So stop moving, Kratos.

Let her go, Kratos.

You don’t want to do this, Kratos.

He raises his sword as he looms over her, thunder cracking overhead, her eyes wide and full of regret and this isn’t right, this isn’t right—

( _“Please, Kratos,” whispers a voice so gentle so tender so pained, like the sad smile of a bittersweet goodbye, like a shy kiss on his lips, like hands on his hips pulling him closer. “Please, while I’m still—”_ )

Satisfaction lights her face, and he realizes a second too late that her hands have found his driver’s discarded weapon. He hesitates just long enough for her to lunge at him and bury it in his chest, drag it through him in a motion violent enough to kill any blade, even if it leaves his core crystal intact.

“Sorry,” she says, though he can’t tell if she means it or not. “But I’m not dying here.”

 _No. Don’t be sorry,_ Kratos thinks, as she lets him fall on his face, as his ether bleeds out of him. _It’s better this way._

Not again.

Not again.


	8. stolen blade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter requires no content warnings

Let’s review: stealing a high-class blade from the Sylvaranti military’s highly guarded safe three floors underneath their base? Incredibly incredibly stupid, and incredibly incredibly dangerous. But.

Anna _pulled it off._

Well, minus the fact she’s currently on the run with what felt like half the Sylvaranti army on her tail, but undeniably she _has_ a core crystal and she _has_ gotten most of the way to her ( _their_ ) freedom, so like! She all but has this in the bag.

The core crystal is dormant, right now, clutched in her fist and held to her chest as she runs at a full sprint across the field spread out before her. Once she gets into the forest she’s positive she can lose them, but she just has to _get_ that far.

The voices behind her are getting louder, as are the clamor of footfalls. Come on, come on, she’s faster than this—

A blast of ether grazes her shoulder and erupts through the air. Anna cries out and stumbles, falling to her knees. Just when she thinks maybe this is it, actually ( _she’s fast, but her endurance leaves something to be desired_ ), there’s a pulse at her fingertips, and a flash of red light.

Before she can even look up there is a hand on her shoulder, the sensation of someone using that grip to vault around her, and then the sound of metal on metal, the taste of clashing ether.

“I suppose introductions will have to wait,” comes a voice, and paired with it is a startled sort of amusement brimming in her chest, the emotion foreign, but wholly welcomed.

She’s not holding the core crystal, anymore.

“Yeah,” Anna says, turning to look up at her savior, her _blade_.

He turns and flashes a smile at her, red eyes burning with determination, but not looking worried in the slightest. “I assume the plan is to get away?” he asks, as he pushes the soldier who attacked him back, blocks another with a sure swing of his sword.

“That would be fantastic.”

“Can you walk?”

Anna gets to her feet in answer.

“Then, on my count. On three, we run.”

“Gotcha.”

She doesn’t even question it. Why should she? What reason does she have not trust him, trust that he has a plan?

“One…” He pushes this soldier back, too, with a well-aimed kick to the sternum. “Two…” Ether gathers around him as cold, delighted certainty builds from his end of the emotion bleed, meeting Anna’s bewildered excitement. “Three.”

The area explodes in blinding light, soldiers fall, and Anna runs. Her blade follows just a step behind her.


	9. the one where she hits on him at a bar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on this installment, we greet velvet (tales of berseria) and yuri lowell (tales of vesperia) ([picture refs here](https://rarsneezes.dreamwidth.org/5926.html#cutid2))
> 
> the _Tom_ and its bartender are lovingly borrowed from my older sister's original fiction, which hopefully will hit the novel market Someday
> 
> this chapter requires no content warnings

“ _Anna_.”

Anna hastily pulls her eyes away from the man at the bar that she’s been watching for the past ten minutes, wrapping up her half of the emotion bleed and shoving it where her blade can’t feel it. She sends a look at Velvet, making a face, grateful that if she’s blushing she can blame it on the alcohol. Not that she’s had enough to be more than slightly tipsy, but. Still. _Still._

Velvet just raises her eyebrows, golden eyes filled with judgement.

“What??” Anna demands, stealing a glance at the guy again. He’s fucking gorgeous, even if his red hair is a disaster, and the little smiles he keeps sending at his friend—his driver? It’s hard to tell if he’s a blade from this distance, especially with that disaster of an outfit he’s wearing ( _disaster though it is, Anna still, unfortunately, cannot take her mind off of him_ )—are so cute?? She turns away again, before Velvet says anything, though the exasperation in the emotion bleed says enough. “Can’t a girl look!”

“Pretty sure you wanna be doing a lot more than looking,” Velvet counters, smirking just slightly. Anna sneers, a little, though Velvet is absolutely right. Velvet pushes her dark hair over her shoulder and takes a drink of her own glass, while Anna turns attention to the guy again.

He looks so fucking _good._ She wants to know what his laugh sounds like. Wants to know if he’ll smile just as cutely for her. Wants to trace her hands over those thighs. _Fuck._

She knocks back what’s left of her drink, grimacing a little at the taste, because the dregs of it aren’t as well mixed together as the rest. It occurs to her that she’s probably had enough alcohol that her inhibitions have packed up and taken a vacation to Altamira, but, you know what? Fuck it. The worst that can happen is he says no.

“Gonna get another drink,” she tells Velvet, getting to her feet.

“You’ll need way more than one to slake that thirst,” Velvet says, straight-faced. Anna sends her a rude gesture, and as she starts moving towards the bar, Velvet calls after her: “Whatever you do, keep it _out_ of the emotion bleed!”

Anna doesn’t respond, because at this point she’s at the bar. She remembers to get her money out _before_ sitting down, and slaps some gald on the counter as she slides into the empty barstool beside that guy she had her sights on. “Another fireball,” she tells the bartender—tall guy with closely buzzed ginger hair, who winks at her but mostly just radiates Big Asshole Energy so she’s immediately turned off, especially considering the cutie sitting next to her. Once she has her drink she dares to look at him, smiling before she can help herself. He’s definitely a blade, the red of his ether striking, and his eyes just as red to match. He looks kind of nervous, but it’s a cute look on him, and his face is _beautiful._

“Hi,” she says. “What’s a fine looking guy like you doing here on a night like this?”

“Uh,” he says. He sends a look for help at his friend—gotta be his driver. “Enjoying a few drinks?”

His driver laughs, nudging him. “Kratos, I think she’s asking you out,” he says, all grins. The blade—Kratos—makes a soft little _oh_ sound, and his driver laughs again. “Sorry, he’s bad at this,” he tells Anna. He reaches past Kratos to hold a hand out to her. “I’m Yuri.”

“Anna,” she answers, shaking his hand. Kratos offers his name, as well, but not his hand to shake. Damn.

“You come here often?” Yuri asks, head tilted. Much like Velvet, he’s perfected the art of keeping his long hair out of his face, which Anna will never understand. There’s a reason she keeps hers short. “Not that _I’m_ flirting with you, just call me curious.”

Anna laughs a little. “Nah, just stopped here for the night while we’re passing through,” she answers. “Locals recommended it highly.” She leans her elbows on the counter, considering her new acquaintances. Kratos is idly swirling the remains of his drink, while Yuri grins, cocky. “What about you two?”

“We’re some of locals highly recommending it,” Kratos answers.

“The _Tom_ ’s a good place,” Yuri agrees, raising his glass towards the bartender.

“You hit up a bar in every town just to flirt with the first blade you see?” Kratos asks, sending Anna a look that’s hard to read. Mostly deadpan, eyebrows raised, but tone just light enough that it’s difficult to say if he’s being judgmental or just fucking with her. She desperately hopes it’s the latter.

Anna puts a hand to her chest, scoffing like she’s offended. “ _Excuse_ me, I’ve looked at all of them in this bar, and you’re objectively the best-looking one here!” she insists. “You’re _cute,_ okay? Fuckin’ adorable. I could literally just—” She catches herself before she says something dumb, cursing the alcohol. She takes a swig of her drink so she can buy time to think of an excuse or something better to say, and— _Architect,_ fuck, not that fast, Anna you’re going to get shitfaced before you even get around to doing what you _want_ to do tonight.

“Yeah?” Yuri asks of her, still grinning that shitty grin.

“Nothing, shut up,” Anna insists. “The alcohol was definitely going to make me say something dumb as shit, so. Give me a minute to think of something good.”

“You think I’m _cute_?” Kratos asks, like he’s surprised.

“Yeah?” Anna answers, eyeing him up and down. Yes, holy shit, that body is to die for, nicely toned and broad shoulders, but it’s the quiet confusion that keeps killing her, the utter cluelessness, the way his brow furrows and mouth pulls down gently. She wants to see him smile again. She thinks that’ll undo her entirely, if he’s smiling at her, because of something she said, and she’s very much looking forward to it. “It’s good to be cute, handsome only gets you so far.”

Kratos squints like she’s crazy, and Anna just grins, while Yuri laughs. He leans over and nudges Kratos.

“This is the part where you tell her you think she looks good,” he stage-whispers.

“Yuri,” Kratos says.

“What? You’ve been staring at her all night.”

Anna raises her eyebrows, quickly hides her expression behind her drink—being careful to just take a _sip,_ this time, she’s already a few drinks in—not that Kratos is looking to see it. Holy shit. He was _looking at her_? Fucking. Incredible luck.

“I- I was not,” Kratos protests, but it’s quiet, and with enough hesitation that Anna’s pretty sure he’s lying. He’s blushing, anyway— _Architect,_ that’s cute. It’s red, so it doesn’t show too badly, but his cheeks glow just a little. Anna prays she’ll get to see more of that.

“You were to!” Yuri insists, then leans forward and around Kratos so he can make eye contact with Anna. “He thinks you’ve got a nice ass.”

“ _Yuri!_ ” Kratos hisses, and it’s with just enough anger that Anna stops smiling.

She puts her drink down. “If you’re uncomfortable and want me to leave you alone, I can do that,” she tells Kratos. “I know it’s fun to just look, sometimes. And if you don’t wanna take this any further, then, like, that’s fine. I can go.”

Kratos blinks at her. Yuri’s expression sobers completely, and he sits back in his chair. Anna waits.

Finally Kratos ducks his head down, blushing. “I… no I.” Looks kind of like saying he wants her to stick around is a little too much for him, but Anna’s not staying until she hears it. Finally Kratos shoots a glare at Yuri. “I would just like a little less backseat driving.”

Yuri laughs. “Okay, okay, that’s fair,” he says. He grabs his drink and gets to his feet. “You here with someone, Anna? Might as well go keep ‘em company and leave the two of you to business.”

Anna points to where she and Velvet were sitting. “Grumpy blade, hair like yours, can’t miss her,” she tells Yuri, who waves his hand in thanks and heads that direction. She watches him go, then turns back to Kratos, feeling a little more nervous, all of a sudden. All of his attention on her is kind of a lot, though. She licks her dry lips idly.

Kratos finally pulls his gaze away and swirls ice around in his glass again. Looks like he’s out of alcohol. “So, uh,” he says, conversationally. “You’ve really decided you want to spend your night flirting with _me,_ then?”

Anna nods, shrugs. “Yeah. I mean, like I said, you’re cute,” she tells him. “And I haven’t stopped thinking about you since I noticed you like an hour ago, so.” She thinks about taking a drink to fill her silence, but refrains, with some effort. Again, the goal is to _not_ get so shitfaced she can’t enjoy talking to her cute company. Also again, her inhibitions are on vacation in Altamira, which means she only thinks for about half a second before she adds: “Also, I’ll be honest? I’d really like to fuck you, if that could be arranged.”

Kratos goes _bright_ red, ducking his head down so his hair covers his face completely. It’s so fucking cute Anna can’t stand it.

“If not that’s fine, too,” she assures him. She’d hate missing out, but isn’t going to make him do anything he’s uncomfortable with. “Might be nice just spending the night getting to know a cute blade.”

(Velvet’s voice in the back of her mind makes some kind of snide comment about how Anna’d really like to get to _know_ this guy, but Anna does her best to ignore that.)

Kratos finally lifts his head, and exhales, slow. “Tell you what,” he says, turning to Anna. “Buy me a drink, and we’ll see where it goes.”

Anna grins back, because even if she would have understood had he said no, she’s _really glad_ he didn’t say no. She holds up a hand to hail the bartender, slaps some more gald on the counter, and then looks to Kratos. Before she can ask him what he’d _like_ to drink, a hunch tickles at the back of her mind. To hell with it. She’d like to see if she’s right.

“Gin and tonic, shaken not stirred, on the rocks,” she says.

The bartender looks at her, and then laughs, the look he sends between her and Kratos a _little_ too knowing for comfort. “Did she just guess your favorite drink _blind,_ Kratos?” he asks, a shit-eating grin on his face. “That’s a keeper.”

Anna blinks, surprised, but no less smug for it. “Is that seriously right?” she asks, looking first to the bartender, then to Kratos. Kratos looks _shell-shocked,_ and he nods, numbly. Anna bursts out grinning. “Holy shit.”

“You cheated,” Kratos accuses, softly, even though he must know as well as her that his drink’s been empty for the whole time she’s been over here.

“Nah,” Anna insists, still unable to believe her luck. “It was just a hunch.”

“Damn good hunch,” the bartender laughs. “Tell you what, it’s on the house, just because I’d like to see where this goes, too—” Kratos groans, but the bartender only seems to enjoy his pain. “’Bout time, is all I’ll say, Kratos.” Then he turns to Anna. “You want more of that fireball? It can be on the house, too.”

Anna shakes her head. “I think if I drink any more I’ll be too shitfaced to enjoy the rest of tonight.”

Bartender keeps grinning. “Aaaand no more alcohol for the lucky lady, noted,” he says, turning around. “Let me get you that drink, Kratos.”

“ _Architect,_ ” Kratos sighs. He sends a suffering look at Anna. “Only problem with being a regular, even the _bartender_ is invested in your love life. Can’t a man get some peace!”

“Never, apparently,” Anna laughs. “Sorry about that.”

“No, whatever, it’s fine.” Kratos sounds annoyed, but only in the way that makes it clear it’s mostly for show. “I’d, uh… I’d like to get to know you, too, I suppose,” he says. “For as long as you’re in town.”

“Just tonight, unfortunately,” Anna says.

“Oh,” Kratos says. He’s silent as he takes his drink from the bartender, and silent for a little longer as he waits for the bartender to move out of earshot. But then he turns to Anna, and he smiles, a gentle, cautious thing. “Guess we’ll have to make tonight count, then.”

“Yeah,” Anna replies, heart swelling with joy. That smile is so _cute,_ soft and small, and paired with the faint red glow of his blushing cheeks and the burning interest in his eyes it undoes her completely. Forget everything else, that smile alone was enough to make her night.

( _Of course, the sex is good, too. Pity she’ll never see him again._ )


	10. single dad kratos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings: this chapter includes a short discussion of a previous death and implied past abuse

The first thing that hits the emotion bleed is relief, as resonance takes hold and Kratos forms.

The second, sadness, and the third, nervousness. Kratos blinks his way into existence, considering his new driver for a moment before considering their surroundings. They’re in a room at an inn—cozy, warm tones created by wooden walls, two beds with comfortable looking sheets, a single window with curtains drawn. Kratos takes this in, and then turns his attention back to his driver.

The boy looks to be… seventeen, Kratos’ mind supplies instantly, even though realistically he shouldn’t be able to peg it any more accurately than _somewhere between fifteen and twenty_ , _closer to fifteen._ The boy is dressed as if he’s been traveling ( _packs and supplies litter the room of the inn_ ), his brown hair messily slicked back, his eyes a bright shining red that Kratos has ever only seen in the mirror.

He sends a cautious-hopeful-sad look up at Kratos from where he sits on the edge of the bed.

“Um, hi,” he says. “I know… you don’t remember me. But my name’s Lloyd.”

 _Don’t remember…?_ Oh.

Sadness washes over Kratos, as well, at the prospect of a life he has lost but can never hope to reclaim, casting a shadow over him in the shape of the boy that sits before him. If Lloyd remembers him, then Kratos probably doesn’t need to introduce himself, so instead he asks:

“Were you my driver, before?”

Lloyd shakes his head. “Nah. I’m, um,” he laughs, kind of nervous. “I know it’ll sound weird, but I’m your son, actually.”

Kratos blinks.

Not unheard of, for blades to adopt children. Not in the slightest. It just usually involves the child being the driver.

Kratos supposes there _is_ one other option here.

“Was… your _mother_ my driver?” he asks. And then realizes it would be wrong to just assume he married a woman, in his previous life. “Or—your other parent. Parents?” There are a lot of options, here, and technically only a few of them actually involve him having gotten married. “Or… sibling, I suppose,” he adds, while he’s speculating.

It gets a laugh out of Lloyd, and that laugh makes Kratos’ core brim with joy, so that’s something.

“No, no,” Lloyd says. “Your driver was—I dunno. Some asshole I’ve only met once. Dunno what killed him, but I’m sure he deserved it.”

Kratos nods, and though it’s a lot to take in, he finds himself a little bit relieved. Considering he and Lloyd are alone in this room, he figured it was safe to assume it was his previous driver who died, and not himself. And the thought of Lloyd losing someone like that and only keeping their blade—their blade, who he considers like a father to him, a father that cannot remember him—it’s almost too much to bear to think about.

Though that does beg the question.

“Can you go back to the bit where you called yourself my son?” Kratos asks. Disappointment flares so sharply in Lloyd that the boy actually physically flinches, and Kratos shudders under the weight of it in the emotion bleed. Quickly, he hedges: “Not that I mind, of course.” ( _How could he mind? It almost feels… natural._ ) “I’m just curious about our history.”

“Ohhh,” Lloyd says, looking a little relieved.

At this point Kratos realizes perhaps he should sit down instead of just standing here. Luckily he formed right between the two beds, meaning he doesn’t really have to _move,_ he only has to sit down on the other bed, across from Lloyd. He does so, and then he gestures for Lloyd to explain.

“Well, you and Mom were married,” Lloyd says, sounding a little nervous but determined. “And I was your son.”

That leaves some holes—but then, Kratos supposes he doesn’t _need_ to know Lloyd’s biological parents, really. What does it actually matter? If he says Kratos was his father, then that’s all Kratos needs to know.

“What of your mother?” Kratos asks. She isn’t here now, and so…

Grief, though dull, hits the emotion bleed. That’s enough for Kratos to understand, but Lloyd explains anyway.

“Oh, she’s… been dead for ten years,” Lloyd says. ( _Something Lloyd remembers and Kratos cannot: being eight years old and Dad comes home late and alone and he’s crying and it takes forever to work up the courage to ask but all he has to do is ask where Mom is and then Dad explains, and they both cry, and they cry, curled up by the fire together._ ) “She- It’s just been you and me. We’ve been kind of on the run—though.” Lloyd stops. Laughs, like something’s just occurred to him. “I guess we could probably stop that. I kind of like traveling, but. If your old driver is dead, we won’t really need to run anymore. That might be nice.”

Alarm strikes in Kratos’ core. They were _on the run from his driver?_

“My driver…” he begins.

Lloyd hardens. The emotion bleed gets furious, and his face pinches in a scowl, head turned away from Kratos. “I mean, Sylvarant wasn’t really happy with anyone connected to Mom, either,” Lloyd says. “So we were running ‘cuz of that, too.”

He does not say anything about Kratos’ previous driver. Kratos gets the sense that’s a topic that’s not on the table.

Maybe it’s better if he doesn’t know. But he does worry.

There are a lot of questions Kratos wants to ask, a lot of things he still wants to know, but he chooses to start with the most relevant. “Will… we be safe to stop running soon, then? Or do we need to be vigilant?”

“Oh, yeah, once we’re in Tethe’alla again we’ll be fine, I think.” Lloyd laughs. “The Sylvarant military isn’t really looking for us—we just can’t really settle down in Sylvarant without getting caught, y’know? Can’t buy a house if we’re known for conspiring with criminals, haha.”

Hmm.

Kratos wonders what, exactly, Lloyd’s mother was considered a criminal for.

He starts to ask, but Lloyd speaks first.

“Anyway, I understand if it’s, like, weird? For you? But…” Lloyd fidgets, a little, idly cracking his knuckles. He seems to have trouble looking Kratos in the eyes. “Well I understand if you don’t want me to, so you don’t gotta say yes, but…” He swallows. “Would it be alright if I still called you Dad?”

“Oh,” Kratos says. And then: “Yes, that would be alright.”

Lloyd laughs, relieved and watery, and then his emotion bleed gets somewhat incomprehensible. He scrubs at his eyes. Oh. He’s _crying._ That makes Kratos’ core catch, makes him want to do something but he isn’t sure what so he sits and he waits and tries to think of words but the fact he does not remember anything about the boy sitting before—doesn’t remember _his son_ —is stirring discomfort and grief in his chest.

“Sorry, sorry,” Lloyd says, laughing emptily. “It’s—I guess it’s been a lot, this past, um, these past few days. All of a sudden you were just gone and. And I did what you always told me to do, I held onto your core crystal and I waited but I—Sorry. It’s silly. You’re alive and you’re here and that’s good but.”

He doesn’t say it. He doesn’t have to.

“Lloyd, it is alright to be upset that I can’t remember you,” Kratos says, gentle. “Quite honestly, I’m not enjoying the lack of memories, myself. We can make it work, though.”

Lloyd laughs again, still a little hopeless but much more genuine. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, okay. Just—be patient with me, okay? It’s gonna be a lot to build back up.”

“So long as you are patient with me in return,” Kratos says. And then, because he wants to: “Is it alright if I hug you?”

That seems to make Lloyd cry harder, but he’s grinning. “Oh, always,” he says. He’s launched himself into Kratos’ arms before Kratos can even move. “ _Always_.”


	11. i'd rather surrender to you in other ways

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter requires no content warnings

“Hey, Kratos?” Anna whispers.

They’re cuddled up together in their bed, her arms around his waist, her face pressed up against his shoulder. It’s warm, and comfortable, and though they should be sleeping— _it’s a big day, tomorrow, plans to hit a Tethe’allan factory, because taking it out would put a serious dent in their war efforts_ —there are a lot of other things on Anna’s mind.

“Hmm?” Kratos hums, shifting a little to try and look at her, but it’s a futile effort. Cute that he’s trying, though.

“Thinkin’ about tomorrow,” Anna answers.

They could die tomorrow.

“Worried?”

“Not really.”

She’s not worried about the dying, so much. That’s kind of just a package-deal with being a revolutionary trying to put a stop to an endless war through any means possible. Both Sylvarant and Tethe’alla have the reasons and means to kill them at any moment, and Heimdall—the only neutral territory on this planet—wouldn’t grant them asylum even if they asked for it (they wouldn’t). If she wants to end this war, she has to put her life on the line. That’s just how it is.

So no, dying isn’t what’s worrying her.

There’s just still a few things she hasn’t done yet that she _will_ regret if she doesn’t get the chance to do, and tomorrow’s chances of dying are higher than normal. Lot of things that could go wrong. Lot of very pissed Tethe’allan military they’ll be wading through, even if things go right.

“I just… Hmm.” Anna scowls, not quite sure how to phrase what’s on her mind, and a little embarrassed besides. She pushes her face a little harder against Kratos’ shoulder, relishing in his warmth and closeness. “We _could_ die tomorrow, is all.”

“I thought you said you weren’t worried.”

“I’m not. But. It’d just be a shame…”

“If?”

Anna blushes, adrenaline kickstarting her heart and filling her with enough energy that she just Needs to sit up, so she does. Kratos rolls over as well as he can while she’s still kind of pinning him with one arm, clearly wanting to try and study an answer out of her face since she’s having trouble putting together her words. But, Architect fuck it all, she’s gotten this far and she _wants_ it, she really does.

“I’m just saying,” Anna says, “that it would be a shame if we died tomorrow and we hadn’t even. You know.”

Kratos blinks at her.

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah.”

“ _Architect,_ Anna.”

“I mean if you don’t want to that’s fine.”

“Tonight just seems like a bad night, seeing how early we need to be up tomorrow.”

“Tonight could be the _only_ night, Kratos.”

Kratos opens his mouth. Closes it. Can’t seem to find a way to argue around that logic. Anna grins a little wider, still a little cheeky, but she can’t help it, because _he’s_ grinning, too, even if he’s rolling his eyes like this is stupid. They’ve gotten this far, so Anna takes it one step further, and swings a leg over him, straddling his hips.

“Yes or no?” she asks.

Kratos reaches up and knots his fingers in her hair. “Yes _please_ ,” he says, and pulls her down for a kiss.


	12. for all the lifetimes we never meet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter requires no content warnings

She’s only a few months into the pregnancy, which means the most Anna’s feeling is, like, morning sickness. So that’s not all bad. Her husband, Lucas, worries about her too much, though ( _she doesn’t mind, it’s cute, and she’ll let him for the next six months_ ) so even though she’d be perfectly fine to be up and doing literally anything, Anna sits in the comfiest chair they own, tucked in the back corner of the living room, her feet up. Lucas sits in the next closest chair, running a hand through his blonde curls as he talks about—something. It’s probably his latest research project ( _he’s an astrophysicist, has spent years studying the interaction of the two moons with the planet, one moon in particular interesting him the most_ ) but Anna admits she hasn’t exactly been paying attention.

Lucas realizes this after a moment, and he stops talking, sending her a knowing look. Anna chuckles lightly, embarrassed. It’s not the first time she’s done this. ( _Not that she doesn’t love listening to him talk about his work, because she does!! But her brain just isn’t always great at focusing on things, sometimes._ )

“Sorry,” she says.

But Lucas doesn’t complain, just smiles at her, fond. She likes that about him.

“Gald for your thoughts?”

"Just thinking about what we'll name the baby," Anna admits.

Lucas absolutely lights up when she says that, smiling like he's a man much younger than he actually is. Anna giggles at the sight of it.

"And?" Lucas prompts, eager, his research forgotten.

"If it's a girl, Poppi," Anna says, easy. "If it's a boy…"

She stops, scowling as she reconsiders. Lucas peers at her, watching her thoughts derail. He gives her a minute, then: "Anna?" he asks.

"Well I was going to say Lloyd, but… no, actually. I wanna save that for something special."

"More special than our first child?"

When he puts it like that, Anna supposes it doesn't make a lot of sense.

"Just— I'll know if he's a Lloyd when I see him, alright?" she says, and maybe it's silly, but she'll stand by it.

Lucas shrugs, after a moment. He doesn't argue, just asks: "And if he's not a Lloyd?"

"Then you get to pick."


	13. the one where she outlives...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **content warnings: major character death**

“Mom…?”

Lloyd’s voice is strained, raspy, and right now he sounds much younger than the twenty-two he actually is. Anna squeezes his hand, tight, kneeling next to where they have him lain prone on the ground. He’s bleeding from a head wound, blood matted into his hair, running down the left side of his face. That and the nasty burns on his abdomen are the worst of the _visible_ damage. Their medic guesses Lloyd also suffers from a few shattered ribs, and their medic—well, it’s out of her expertise, and the only healing blade they had was caught in the same explosion that caught Lloyd, only it killed _her_ outright. She’ll be back, of course, as blades are, but it won’t be in time to help Lloyd, and there aren’t any hospitals close and even if there were they likely would not help a group of rebels such as themselves.

So Anna squeezes Lloyd’s hand with everything in her, and tries very hard not to cry. It’s not working.

“Hey, shh, I’m here,” she tells him, and with the hand that isn’t holding his she runs her fingers through his hair, not caring about the blood, _what does a little blood on her hands matter when her son is dying._ “I’m- I’m here, Lloyd, I’m here.”

Lloyd laughs, or maybe he sobs, either way it turns into a sharp wheeze, the action causing him incredible pain. His grip on Anna’s hand gets tighter, as he clings to her to steady himself, and Anna lets him, doesn’t complain. It’s a nice reminder that—for now, at least—he has the strength to crush her fingers near breaking.

“’m sorry,” Lloyd gets out, a little slurred. “I’m- I fucked it up, huh?” And there’s that strained, wheezing laugh again, laughing in his despair even though the laughter hurts him.

“No, _no,_ ” Anna says, firmly, squeezing his hand tight. “If- If we’d had any clue there was a _fucking bomb_ waiting for us we wouldn’t have sent you- we would have been more careful—”

“Please don’t blame yourself, Ma,” Lloyd says, smiling shakily up at her, and that hurts the most, that he’s trying to put on a brave face as he’s lying here _fucking dying,_ Architect, her son is dying and there’s nothing she can fucking do to stop it and maybe that hurts most of all. “Y’ didn’t know, so.”

“Fine,” Anna says, fond and still trying to rein in the storm in her chest, trying to find footing as her world is ripped out from under her. “Fine, but you can’t blame yourself _either,_ ” she tells Lloyd, voice shaking as she clings to both him and her conviction. “It’s not- _augh_.” Tears fill her eyes so much she can barely see Lloyd’s face, anymore. “I’ll fucking kill whoever did this,” she promises.

Lloyd just laughs again, laughs though it’s tight and pained, and she wonders if she should tell him to try and take it easy, but what does it matter, it’s not going to make his life any longer. His grip on her hand is already not as tight as before. Fuck. He’s only twenty-two.

“Where’s… Dad?” Lloyd asks, blinking up at the ceiling past Anna’s face.

“He’s—” But honestly Anna has no fucking clue where Kratos is, has had no clue since the mission went to shit as spectacularly as it did, all she knows is their resonance link is alright so he’s still _alive_. “Someone went to get him. They better fucking hurry.” Honestly how her overwhelming grief has not alerted Kratos that something is _very wrong_ and sent him running to them is a—

The resonance link tugs, a little, sings with the proximity of her blade and husband, and Anna feels relieved for about an entire second until _Kratos’_ grief rises up and slams against her, knocking all air out of her lungs. Anna squeezes her eyes shut and gives up any pretense of trying not to cry, pushing her fingers through Lloyd’s hair in a repetitive motion she cannot make herself stop even though she’s quite sure it’s not doing anything to soothe her nerves. She sobs openly, as Kratos drops beside her, his weight against her side.

“Lloyd,” he says, choked.

“Hi, Dad,” Lloyd says, and Anna opens her eyes just long enough to see Lloyd lift his free hand and Kratos take it in both of his. “’M glad you’re here.”

Kratos doesn’t say anything, and the grief in the emotion bleed doesn’t exactly let up, which means someone’s already told Kratos that—yeah. There’s nothing they can do. No healing. No miracle. Just their son dying.

It’s not. Fucking. _Fair._

“Y’mind… staying?” Lloyd asks, between wheezing gasps of air. “Jus’—until… sorry. Sorry.” Anna wants to tell him he shouldn’t apologize but can’t get the words out, can’t get anything out but strained, broken kind of whine. “Prob’ly. Horrible to watch. But.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Kratos assures their son, with a steadiness that Anna is envious of, where the hell in his core did he manage to find that and pull it out??

Oh.

“I’m not, either,” she tells Lloyd, and there’s the steadiness, somehow, like making this promise to her son is more important than anything else. For that brief moment her voice does not waver, even though once the words are out she’s sobbing, again.

Kratos doesn’t, yet. But he will later.

And they stay there. They stay there, until Lloyd’s grip on their hands goes slack, until his eyes fall shut and do not open again, until he takes a breath and breathes no more.

The grief is overwhelming. No parent should ever have to outlive their child.

( _But Anna does._

 _And she’ll do it again._ )


	14. healing blade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter involves characters being injured, but the threat is not serious and everyone lives
> 
> [non ToS characters + visual guides here](https://rarsneezes.dreamwidth.org/5926.html#cutid3)

“Stay with me, Karol, it’ll be alright,” Kratos pleads to the boy he carries in his arms, his driver held close to his chest as he runs as fast as he is able. Karol’s wounds are not immediately fatal—their resonance link is as steady as ever—but that’s about all Kratos can tell. He isn’t a healing blade. All he knows is Karol passed out from either blood loss or the trauma of _having been stabbed,_ and he does not want Karol to die.

He doesn’t want to die.

Kratos finally crosses the threshold of the town he’d been sprinting towards, and there are shouts and gasps but most are of surprise rather than suspicion. A blade arriving with an injured driver? Unusual, yes, but not unheard of.

“Please!” Kratos shouts, not caring about decorum. “Can someone tell me where this town’s doctor is? Or, if anyone has a healing blade—”

“I do!” comes a voice, female, excited, immediately followed by another, male, disgruntled:

“Anna you _cannot_ just offer me up like that.”

“What’s the point of being a healing blade if you don’t help people??”

“Your bleeding heart will get us killed, one of these days!”

By this point the blade and his driver have made their way to Kratos, who has stood very still waiting for them. The driver is a woman with brown hair cropped to her shoulders, delight burning in her eyes as well as the concern, and she holds herself confidently. She waves for Kratos to move over to the side of the road, her smile gentle. He does, finding no reason _not_ to trust her, even if they did just meet. Who would lie about something like this, anyway?

( _Honestly, it doesn’t even occur to him_ not _to trust her_.)

Her blade has black hair cropped short and messy, and he wears red, rectangular glasses ( _even though blades are incapable of having bad eyesight?_ ). He moves with some kind of rigid, practiced precision, and he is not smiling like his driver is. Instead he is scowling.

“Well, put them down, so I can see,” he tells Kratos, agitated.

“Oh,” Kratos says. He kneels down and gently places Karol on the ground, hovering a little, worried. He’s injured, himself, red ether bleeding into the air from cuts on his arms and a particularly deep one across his right shoulder blade, from intercepting a blow meant for Karol. But, he’s a blade. The wounds will heal on their own, given time. Karol’s might not.

The healing blade kneels down on the other side of Karol, then shoots Kratos a glare. “Give me some space so I can work, honestly,” he spits.

“Oh,” Kratos says, again, and he does, somewhat startled. He remains kneeling on the ground, though, wanting to be close.

“Sorry,” the driver says, squatting down next to him. “Akhos is like that.” She holds her hand out for Kratos to shake, which he does. “I’m Anna.”

“Kratos,” he answers. He nods to his driver. “And that’s Karol.”

Anna nods, a playful kind of concern written in her brow that Kratos appreciates, somewhat. She is not angry or overly worried, rather she’s treating this like it could have happened to anyone, and yes it sucks that it was Kratos, but it’s not a big deal, either. “What happened to you guys?” she asks, and it’s more curious than it is judgmental. Kratos appreciates that, too.

“Bandits,” he answers.

Akhos scoffs, even as he works. Electric ether gathers around his hands and Karol’s wounds. “Bandits? And what would a twelve-year-old have that bandits could possibly be after?”

“You steal something important?” Anna asks, hushed, sounding delighted by the idea.

Kratos shakes his head. “No, no,” he tells her. She makes a little _aww_ of disappointment. “I believe they were after me, actually.”

“Oh,” Akhos says, tone dark instead of agitated.

Anna, too, sobers. “Disgusting,” she spits, eyes narrowed with anger. “How low can you get? Targeting some kid just because you want their blade—” She makes a short, annoyed sound. “Tch. Makes me sick.”

Kratos agrees, but: “I am just glad we are alright,” is all he says, then he looks to Akhos, tries not to hover too close. “He _is_ alright?”

“Yes, yes,” Akhos says, dismissive. “I know what I’m doing, so of course he is—or he will be.” After a moment of consideration, Akhos adds, somewhat gentler: “Physically, anyway. Who knows what anxieties he has after being assaulted like this, but I cannot do anything for those.”

Kratos doesn’t know what to say, so he simply nods his head, slow, and says: “Thank you.”

“Mm.” Akhos’ acceptance of the gratitude is short, uninterested.

They sit in silence, waiting for Akhos to finish healing Karol. He’s done only after another minute, and dusts off his hands. Once he’s done that, Anna turns to Kratos.

“Hey,” she says. “You interested in traveling together? Safety in numbers, and—I dunno, I’m sure you can take plenty good care of your kid fine on your own but. It’s nice to _not_ be alone, you know? So maybe it’d be nice to…”

“Anna,” Akhos interjects, glaring over his glasses at her. “You can’t just _offer_ that, you didn’t even consult me!”

“Well the question was for you as much as it was for him!” Anna tells her blade, rolling her eyes.

“And _I_ don’t agree to it!” Akhos says, sharp. “It’s entirely off-script—”

“You and your scripts, holy shit, just say it ruins our plans like a normal person. Which, may I remind you, _it does not,_ we didn’t even _have plans_.”

Akhos opens his mouth to protest, but can’t find the words for it. He glares at Kratos, briefly, then glares at Anna. Then he looks to Kratos again, pointing a finger. “We’ll deliberate, and then get back to you,” he tells Kratos, firm. Then he rises to his feet.

Anna does as well, and Kratos follows. A part of him wants to pick Karol up again, but he ignores it for the moment—Karol will be fine on the ground for the two seconds it takes him to say a proper goodbye.

“Alright,” Kratos says, unbothered. “I would have to ask Karol, anyway, what he thinks, so…”

“It’s settled, then!” Anna says.

“Nothing’s settled,” Akhos spits. He sends his driver another glare, then his eyes dart back to Kratos again. For a brief, uncomfortable moment, Kratos feels much like he is being weighed, and then Akhos’ gaze both sharpens and becomes kinder. He scoffs and rolls his eyes, then holds out a hand to Kratos. “Honestly, I know you don’t need it, but here.”

Kratos hesitates, not quite certain what Akhos wants, then remembers that he is bleeding. Ah. He takes Akhos’ hand, and immediately Akhos’ ether meets his, sharp and electric, snapping through his veins like a cracking whip, and as quickly as it started it is over, and Kratos’ wounds have closed.

“There,” Akhos says, drops Kratos’ hand, and starts walking.

“Tomorrow,” Anna tells Kratos, hurriedly. “At the café, over there,” she points, vaguely. “It’s got good food, and good coffee and—we’ll meet at noon, okay? Then talk about it.” She grins at him, bright an excited, then waves as she trots off after her blade. “See you then!!” she calls.

“Yes, see you,” Kratos echoes, though it is much too late for her to hear.

Maybe… she’s right. Maybe traveling with someone else could be nice.

He bends down to pick Karol up, again, and then sets about finding an inn to rest at for the night.


	15. peace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter requires no content warnings

They’re in a time of peace, which is rare, but happens.

They’re together, and together they live a completely normal life. The most exciting thing that happens is Anna getting steamed over the morning’s newspaper, but nothing is happening in the world that warrants much more than a few minutes of grumbling about something a politician said in bad taste, which Kratos can usually get her to forget about if he kisses her just right.

They have a son, they name him Lloyd. He grows up happy and healthy and loved. The worst thing that ever happens to him is the time he falls out of a tree and breaks his arm.

It’s not necessarily the best life they ever live.

But it’s quiet, and that in itself is a blessing.

( _If the Architect were watching, he might be jealous._ )


	16. revolutionary shenanigans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter requires not major content warnings, though does allude to the looming possibility of war

Lloyd is 14-years-old and _very_ excited. He fiddles with his suspenders, bouncing with restless energy as he listens to his dad go over the plan again. It's not _that_ exciting, honestly—he's seen his parents do things _way_ more exciting than a simple protest ( _Tethe'alla is fighting the latest peace treaties, and so_ someone's _gotta show them that no, thank you, we're sick of war_ ), but mostly Lloyd is just excited that he gets to help at all instead of staying home.

"And if something goes wrong—" his dad begins, and Lloyd huffs.

"I know where the nearest safehouses are, Dad," Lloyd says, scowling. His dad's doing the thing where he's bending down to be on eye level with Lloyd, even though the height difference between them has evened out considerably, (well, Lloyd's still _shorter_ , but not as short as he'd been when he was _eight_ ). "And I know who to ask for and who not to talk to and what to say if I get caught. I'll be fine!!"

His dad looks him up and down, sighing deeply. He reaches out to touch Lloyd's face, fingers brushing Lloyd's cheek, his smile fond.

"I know, Lloyd," he says, and there _is_ confidence there. "I just worry."

"Come on, Kratos," says his mom, throwing her hair over her shoulder. Looks like she's finished her preparations. "You don't trust me to look after our son?"

"Of course I do. But that does not mean he shouldn't know what to do if the two of you get separated."

Anna opens her mouth, but: "Alright, that's fair," she admits. She grins, though, reaches over to ruffle Lloyd's hair. "You ready, Lloyd?"

Lloyd beams. "I'm ready!!"

His dad takes his face in both hands and kisses Lloyd on the forehead, lingering, Lloyd thinks, for a second too long. "Be careful," he says, and it's full of love and pride, despite the clear worry, so that’s alright, actually. "I'll see you tonight."

"You be careful, too, Dad."

His mom steals a kiss from his dad before they go, short and sweet, and Lloyd makes a face even though they aren't watching and it really doesn’t last long enough to be _worth_ a protest, but. Anyway. After that, he and his mom are on their way.


	17. that was her husband. that was her SON.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings: references to offscreen death, as well as human experimentation

A woman is brought to stand before the judge.

“Anna Aurion, you are charged with the murder of one Kvar Fulmen. How do you plead?”

The woman smiles, much too wide. Anyone else in the courtroom might call that smile a little off-kilter, unsettling, might look at this woman and feel a chill. After all, being brought to court on charges of murder and managing to look completely and wholly _satisfied_ with that? It’s unsettling.

“Guilty as charged,” and she says so proudly, with so little care, that anyone who wasn’t feeling a chill before is feeling one now.

Even the judge seems taken aback.

“You do not even intend to argue for your own innocence?”

She just smiles wider, brighter.

“Why bother? I’m not innocent. And if you expect me to feel _remorse_ —” She cuts off, and she laughs. Her pride is marred by anger, her smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. “That man was kidnapping drivers and blades alike, experimenting on them both. Honestly? He deserved much worse than what I did to him.”

The judge, it seems, is not so eager to condemn her.

“If you have _any_ proof that he was committing such crimes—”

“I don’t,” she interjects, eyes burning. Her voice shakes, with her conviction. “I burned all of his research.” She smiles wide and proud, head held high. “I don’t care if that cost me my freedom! Better to throw my life away than to let any of that research hurt _anyone_ else _ever_ again. If you _knew_ some of the shit he did—”

“Miss Aurion,” the judge interrupts.

She stops. Closes her eyes. Takes a shuddering breath.

“It doesn’t matter to me,” she says, when she speaks again. “My son is dead. My husband will never remember me, will never trust me again.” She keeps smiling, proud, broken. “Sentence me how you like. I don’t have anything left to live for, anyway.”

The silence that stretches is deafening.

Finally, the judge speaks.

“Then… in accordance with our laws, I sentence you to life in prison.”

A woman sits alone in her prison cell.

 _(“Kratos,_ please _—”_

 _“And why should I trust_ you _?”)_

It plays on repeat and repeat and repeat in her head.

( _The first time they met, in his final lifetime, he didn’t remember her._

_She remembered him, though._

_For him, it was their first meeting._

_For her?_

_It wasn’t._ )


	18. Martel

They have been running for so long that Kratos does not remember what it is like to not be running, to be honest. His lungs are burning and the heart that even after years he has not quite gotten used to having pounds too loud too fast fills his every thought. Martel stumbles beside him but does not fall, and after a moment she looks over her shoulder, starts to slow down.

“I think…” she says, somewhat breathless. “I think we’re good, now. I think we lost them.”

Kratos slows because he cannot leave her, not after this, not now. Who would he be if he set her free and then left her in the dust? So when she stops, so does he.

“You sure?” he asks, and—it’s been years, but he cannot quite banish the fear from him, claws digging in his throat, thoughts spinning whispering _they’re coming for you they’re coming they’ll just take you back and then hurt you again how dare you think you could walk free—_

Kratos reminds himself firmly that if anyone found them now, he would be killed on the spot. He does not want that, but it is a significantly kinder fate, at least.

Martel takes a second to answer, scanning the horizon behind them, guarding her freedom close to her chest with the same fervency and fear that Kratos does. But: “Yes,” she says, after a moment. “Yes, I’m sure.”

There’s a split second where they stare at each other, taking that in, the weight of it, the weight of this moment and the weight of their _freedom._ And then in unison they collapse into the grass beneath them, laughing with their joy.

“I can’t believe it,” Martel says, on her back but turning her head to face Kratos, still breathing heavily from her exertion, still laughing occasionally between breaths ( _it is a high, tense kind of laugh, relief and everything else all bundled up into one sound_ ). “I thought I was going to rot in there forever.” Her eyes brim with tears as she considers the blade who saved her, her smile wide and uncaring as it has not been for years. “Thank you.”

Kratos takes a moment before he speaks, still trying to catch his breath. Martel’s joy and laughter is infectious, even if he is not yet her driver.

“It was… nothing,” he tells her, finally.

She scrunches up her face in disbelief, still laughing. “Nothing? What are you talking about!” She turns her grin up to the sky above them, a sky she must have feared she’d never see again. “We’re _free._ ”


	19. the one where she's a politician

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings: this chapter contains discussions of war and one line of extreme disregard for blade lives

It’s been somewhere over a hundred years since Kratos freed the Aegises, somewhere over a hundred years since Martel died, and though there has not been a war quite like that one, the Great one, Tethe’alla and Sylvarant are at each other’s throats again. They decide to hold peace talks. They invite Kratos and Mithos.

It makes sense, of course. Invite the Aegis and his driver, the most important people in the world. Have them weigh in on a new treaty, since they helped design the first.

Kratos is pretty sure they were only invited on formality, though. No one seems to care that they are here, and all that care seem to care for the wrong reasons. They keep eyeing Mithos, hungry, and the way they eye Kratos isn’t much better. It’s the _“what would it take to kill you quickly and quietly”_ kind of look, the _“the fact I’m unarmed is the only reason you aren’t dead”_ kind of look. Needless to say, both Aegis and driver are on edge. Tight anxiety tossed back and forth through the emotion bleed only makes things worse.

They sit together in the back of the conference hall, close to the door. Hundreds of seats—all full—spread out in tiered rows below them. Mithos is fidgeting, ankles crossed and bouncing, arms crossed as well as he looks anywhere but at the human currently preaching at the podium. If he hadn’t been filling the silence with tense complaints under his breath for the past hour already, he might be still going at it, but even Mithos runs out of things to say. Only so many complaints you can give before you start repeating yourself, especially considering how much the Tethe’allan general has said the same disgusting nonsense twenty times now. Kratos has long since tuned him and everyone before him out. He only looks up now because the general has finished his piece and a Sylvaranti woman has gotten up to take his place, and Kratos only keeps looking because she looks like she’s about to explode, she’s so furious.

Her long brown hair is tied up in a bun, and her clothes indicate nobility, though Kratos is much too far away from her to really tell the difference between the garb of nobility and the formal wear of Sylvarant’s military. ( _He is also much too far away to recognize her face, not that he has any memories of her to recognize her with._ )

“That’s all well and good,” she enunciates, clearly. “But the point of this matter is that that the war is _too costly_ to continue. Never mind the money, we are losing too many lives—human and blade alike—and frankly it’s not worth it!”

“It doesn’t _have_ to cost human lives!” calls a voice from the crowd. Mithos tenses beside Kratos, disgust filling his core to the brim even before the man who spoke continues: “We can just send blades.”

The woman at the podium seems just as disgusted as Mithos feels, her anger and response sharp. “And _who_ is going to drive them?” she demands. “Would you send them to the front lines without their drivers? For the sake of a war we _don’t need to be fighting_?”

Kratos sits up a little straighter in his chair. Even as another man in the crowd stands, he cannot take his eyes off the woman at the podium.

“They’re expendable!” someone shouts.

“ _No they are not!_ ” the woman counters, all fire and fury.

Something small and somewhat hopeful burns gently in Kratos’ chest, some feeling he cannot quite put a pin on. Imagine that. A human—a _human_ —daring to say in front of a crowd that blades matter, that their lives are not simply more cannon fodder. Imagine that. He does not pull his eyes away, even as Mithos sits up straighter as well, oblivious for a moment to the discomfort that sings high and clear in the emotion bleed, oblivious to everything until—

Mithos’ hand finds his arm.

The touch is gentle, a brush of Mithos’ fingers against the fabric of Kratos’ sleeve, pressure barely there, but it draws Kratos sharply out of his reverie, his heart pounding double-time until his brain catches up to his senses, until he registers that it is only Mithos ( _and even then_ ). Mithos’ hand shifts, fingers slowly wrapping around Kratos’ forearm, the grip somewhat tight and desperate, their resonance link tugging as Mithos meets Kratos’ eyes.

“Can we go,” he asks, quiet.

Kratos hesitates, but he registers now that the emotion bleed is tight and _scared_ and.

“Yes,” Kratos says.

He does not spare even a glance for the woman at the podium again.

( _This is the last peace talk that Mithos attends. Kratos is refused entry from the next one he tries to go to._ )


	20. Malik

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **content warnings for the whole flesh eater shebang, human experimentation, implied torture, death offscreen and onscreen**
> 
> with sincere apologies to Malik Caesar, and huge thank yous(?) to Aly, who suggested this chapter as well as all of Malik's lore and then further helped me hammer it (it's not too different from his canon lore from Tales of Graces, except now he's a blade, and a handful of more people die this time around)
> 
> [visual guide](https://rarsneezes.dreamwidth.org/5926.html#cutid4)

As it turns out, growing a heart hurts like hell.

In the spots of coherent thought Malik manages to find amidst how much _pain_ he’s in and the glimpses of consciousness through sleep, he wonders idly if how much this hurts was meant to be part of his punishment, or if it’s just a bonus for dear old Chancellor Eigen. Malik has never understood how someone could hate their daughter’s _blade,_ even if the blade is supposedly responsible for involving said daughter in dangerous revolutionary business. ( _And that wasn’t_ his _fault, it was_ Kurt’s _, honestly._ )

It’s dark, in his cell in what Malik assumes is Fendel’s highest security prison. Eigen would have wanted to keep him close. Malik hasn’t been awake long enough in it to really be sure if it’s dark just because it’s night or if the cell really is that terribly lit. Of course there is still a _faint_ light, the dim lavender glow of his ether lines, but that certainly isn’t enough to see by. Not anymore. But of course it isn’t.

( _He can still taste blood in his mouth. He tries not to think about whose it was._ )

Quite honestly it hurts too much to move, so Malik gives up and lays back down, surrendering to the pain and the steady—if feeble— _thump thump thump_ of the heart his body is trying desperately to grow.

He only wishes when he sleeps, it was dreamless.

Lily, for as long as Malik had known her ( _which, of course, had been his entire life_ ) was a force of nature. Even when she had to sit still and silent on her father’s business meetings, she gave the impression of a calm ocean more than anything else. Her strength had not been silenced. It was just waiting. Gathering information she’d later hand over to the rebels set on overthrowing the corrupt rule of Fendel’s city state. ( _They’d tried to get Tethe’alla to step in, but Tethe’alla’s rulers couldn’t care less what the city states under their jurisdiction got up to so long as they got their taxes and could control their armies._ )

Of course it was not Malik’s idea to start a revolution. It never had been. It was Lily’s idea, through and through, and Kurt only enabled her, gave her the resources, put her information to good use. Malik followed along, as was his duty, and later his ambition. He thinks he would have followed her even if he had not been her blade. He wanted a better place to live as much as the rest of them. And, well.

He loved her.

( _Sometimes he wonders if Eigen hated him for that, too, for all he acted of it being completely unheard of for a blade and a driver to be in love. Then again, there’s very little Malik can think of that Eigen_ doesn’t _hate him for._ )

The cell door creaks open. A body is tossed in unceremoniously next to him. Warm elbows hit his knees, a voice curses weakly, the door is slammed shut.

“Lily?” Malik croaks, hopeful, even though an empty resonance sings back at him, even though he knows she is dead, knows that she died sometime while he was unconscious, _and that stings, that she died and he wasn’t even awake to feel her go._

“Anna,” the voice replies.

Oh.

He remembers Anna—of course he does. Not that he knows her _well,_ exactly. She’s a childhood friend of Kurt’s, so he’s never really seen her unless Kurt was also in the room, and needless to say he was usually more distracted by Kurt. But she was kind of cornerstone in their revolution, spitfire and delighted in everything she did, and honestly it’s just nice to see a familiar face. Or, hear a familiar voice. Malik hasn’t found the strength to open his eyes, yet. Or to move.

He hurts a little less, at least.

“Where’s—everyone else?” Malik asks.

“Prison, mostly,” is Anna’s reply, bright and bitter. “Ran outta cells, that’s why I’m here with you.”

Makes sense, Malik supposes.

“Kurt?” he asks, around a knot of dread in his throat.

“….he’s dead.”

“Oh.”

That isn’t really a surprise, either. Kurt was the brains behind the operation, so of course Eigen wanted him dead. Malik thinks for a brief moment he’d probably be dead, too, if blades didn’t just come back to another driver after death. Then he remembers if Eigen had wanted to kill him and kill him for good, all Eigen would have had to do was shatter his core crystal. So Eigen _doesn’t_ want him dead.

No, Eigen wants him to wallow in his grief. Are you happy, Eigen? He’s wallowing!

“I’m really sorry,” Anna says, and Malik realizes that he’s pressed his hands to his eyes, registers the hot tears against his skin. “I miss him too, of course, but I can’t imagine what it’s like for you… I know the three of you were—close.”

Malik laughs, an empty bubbling thing that dies almost immediately in his throat.

( _Close, huh? He thinks about Kurt’s knowing smiles and lingering touch that was certain to leave Malik bursting with_ want _regardless of how appropriate the time was or wasn’t. He thinks about three bodies pressed close to fend off the biting cold of the Flanoir region. He thinks about how bright Lily’s grin was, both arms slung around her boys’ shoulders, pulling them down to her height._ )

“Just because I was dating him doesn’t mean I miss him anymore than you do,” Malik counters, near-choking on his grief. Anna knew Kurt for much longer than he did.

Anna doesn’t say anything. Not about Kurt, anyway.

“What about… Lily? She’s still alive, right? I mean, you’re still here—”

The grief takes over Malik anew.

“No. She. She’s gone, too.”

Everything had already gone south, their position and their plans tipped off to Eigen’s men someway, somehow, and the whole rebellion was caught and when it came to a firefight between them and the entirety of Fendel's military, it really wasn’t a fair fight at all, and—

Lily had taken a hit meant for him while they were trying to escape.

“Why’d you do that?!”

“I wasn’t really thinking.”

Her blood on his clothes on his arms as he held her, cradled her as she lost the strength to stand.

“I would have lived!!”

“Again, wasn’t thinking. I just moved. Kurt’s always been the thinker, remember?”

Her smile is fond, her eyes gleam even if sadness pulls at their corners.

And he holds her head to his chest as she loses consciousness, holds her until Eigen arrives and his soldiers pry her out of his arms.

“Then… how are…” Anna begins, her voice kind of distant, and then. Malik’s hands are still pressed to his eyes and he’s still on his back on the ground, but he knows the moment she figures it out because all of her sudden she has launched herself across the length of the cell and her hands are on him, she’s pressing an ear to her chest. Malik can he feel her horror crystalize, can hear it in her sharp inhale, his fate made clear to her by the steady _thump thump thump_ of his new heart.

“No,” Anna says, tinny, like she’s standing in a much deeper sea of grief than Malik is currently adrift in. She lifts her head from his chest. “ _No,_ what the fuck, how did they—how did he know how to—I burned the research. I burned it.” Her voice, small, starts rising to a crescendo as she repeats the words. “I burned it _I burned it I BURNED IT._ ”

Malik lets his hands fall from his face, concern for the only friend he has left bubbling in his core. He pushes himself upright, blinks into the dim light—oh, brighter than it had been before, sunlight streaming in at an oblique angle from a small window too high to reach. He doesn’t pay much attention to the cell, though, attention only for Anna. Her fingers are buried in her own hair, knuckles white, face pressed against her knees where she hunches over, breathing heavily.

“I burned it,” she repeats, like it’s a promise. “I burned it—I burned it all—so that no other blade—so that they couldn’t do this to anyone else—but I guess people have been doing this for ages, huh? Blades finding ways—Not like he invented it—he just made it worse—just took it too far—wanted to see what all could be done— _fuck._ ”

Her fervent mumblings break off, and she curls in on herself further, like something about whatever she’s saying has brought her incredible pain.

“Anna…?” Malik asks, cautiously.

“Don’t touch me,” she spits. “Don’t—I’m fine— _Architect._ ”

Malik doesn’t know how he’s supposed to cope at all with all that’s happened to him in the past few—days? How long has it _been,_ anyway—but ignoring his own problems to focus on someone else’s sounds like a great way to cope, at least for now.

“You don’t look very fine to me,” he says, in the voice he would have used to convince Lily to go ahead and vent about her father, to coax Kurt away from his work.

“It’s—I don’t know what’s—my head hurts so bad—I’m gonna _kill him._ ”

Malik wonders if she means Eigen. Somehow he doesn’t think she does. But.

“Trying to kill Eigen is what got us into this mess,” he reminds her.

Anna’s head snaps up, then, tears streaking down her cheeks, eyes rimmed red. “They _hurt_ you, Malik,” she seethes. “They _fucking hurt you,_ and—”

“It wasn’t too bad, really.”

Anna glares at him like she knows that’s a lie. And. She’s right.

Malik wonders how she knows, though. Kurt’s always talked like he’s known her forever and… he’s _pretty sure_ that if Anna knew any flesh eaters, Kurt would have known them, too, and there’s no way Kurt _wouldn’t_ have brought it up.

They stare at each other for a long moment. Malik swallows, not sure what to do under the weight of Anna’s grief, not really sure why she’s looking at _him_ like that.

“Why?” she asks finally, quiet.

( _He realizes, quite suddenly, that she did not for a second assume that he chose this fate for himself._ )

“She died for you, Malik.”

Eigen’s voice was biting, all of his hatred packed into it, though Malik had barely flinched, restraining against the arms of faceless soldiers that held him, trying to get closer to her, because she wasn’t dead _yet_ even if he knew _she would be. (Blades can tell that better than doctors, sometimes. It’s hard not to feel your resonance being pulled apart like a thread that’s slowly but inevitably unraveling under the tension._ ) If she was going to die then he was going to _be there to see it,_ but—

“My daughter,” Eigen continued. “ _My_ Lorelia.”

( _No one who loved her called her Lorelia. Only those that loved the_ idea _of her._ )

“Dead. Because of _you_.”

“So?” Malik spat, haughty, because he is a fighter through and through and if they would not let him go then he would at least not go quietly. “What are you gonna do about that? Kill me, huh? I’m already a dead man!”

“No, Malik. I want you to remember.”

“What.”

“I want you to remember, _forever,_ that she is dead, because of you. I want you to never forget.”

( _Malik hopes that one day he’ll at least forget the taste of her blood._ )

“Well,” Anna says.

“Well,” Malik says.

They make eye contact with each other, trying to decide their next step. They got out of their cell and are most of the way through an escape—not just them, of course. They set every other prisoner they found on the way out free while they were at it, because you might as well go all in, right? Of course the guards are _very_ mad at them, for this. The sound of heavy soldier footfalls is loud and ringing, an oncoming storm, promise of doom. There’s too many to outrun easy.

“Now what?” Malik asks, looking to Anna.

She looks at him, then at the hallways the guards are coming down, and then at the ragtag group of other prisoners—there’s only five others left, all human, three that Malik recognizes and two that he doesn’t. Who knows where the blades went. Honestly, Malik doesn’t think he _wants_ to know.

Anna takes a deep breath.

“Well,” she says. “If we want to make sure we all don’t end up back in our cells or worse, I think one of us is going to have to draw their attention.”

When she says it like that, it’s pretty obvious who she has in mind to draw said attention.

“Anna, no,” Malik interjects, grabbing her by the arm before she can get up. “I’ll go.”

She rounds on him, eyes narrowed like this is a personal offense. “Don’t you dare, Malik.”

“Why not? Worst they’ll do is just lock me up again. _You_ , they’ll kill!”

Anna just takes his hands in hers, gripping them tight. “Lily wanted you to live,” she says, her gaze heavy and full of determination. “Lily wanted you to _live,_ not rot away in a jailcell and your grief. So you need to _live,_ Malik.”

( _She knows what a man who lets grief take all his life out of him looks like, she doesn’t want Malik to spend the rest of his life like that man._ )

“But—”

“Besides.” And here Anna smiles, squeezes Malik’s hands. “I’m expendable.”

“No- _what_?” That doesn’t make any sense! “ _No._ You aren’t. Anna I can’t lose you, too—”

“Sorry, Malik. But it’s okay. You’ll see me again.”

She gets up and she runs, whistling high and clear to draw the attention of the guards, and Malik curses, starts to follow—But there’s a hand on his arm, one of the other rebellion members yanking him back.

“Come on, you’ll waste the time she’s buying us,” they say, sending Malik a shaky smile. “Let’s go.”

…faced with a choice like that, it really isn’t a choice, Malik supposes.

But how dare she make a promise like that?

How dare she?

He knows she died in there.

He knows he’ll never see her again.

Except then he does.

An eight-year-old girl darts behind him at a market, hides behind his legs. The first thing Malik notices is the armful of apples she’s desperately trying not to drop. The next thing he notices is the pair of guards, and Malik immediately does the responsible thing and hides her better behind his cloak before raising his hand.

“Guards!” he calls. “You’re looking for a thief, right?”

“Did you see her?”

Malik does his best to sound as serious as possible about this matter, instead of breaking out into a grin like he wants to. He points down one of the pathways. “She went that way!”

The guards thank him and hurry off and the girl—who had clearly been holding her breath, and Malik realizes belatedly he probably scared her to death, calling the guards’ attention like that—exhales long and terrified.

“Phew!! What the heck, Mister!!”

“Sorry, kid,” Malik says, and he turns around to look at her. “Didn’t mean to scare you like that, but I wanted to get them off your tail.” He smiles, and then double takes. He… knows that face, he thinks. It’s almost twenty years too young, but the hair is the same—if a little rattier—and so are the eyes, that pouty glare. He bends down to be on her level. “What’s your name?”

“Anna,” she says, and Malik forgets how to breathe for a second.

( _What he wants to know, more than anything, is how did she_ know.)

He stares in silence for a second, mind spinning as he tries to decide what to say, gauging how unlikely it is that she remembers him. She gets annoyed at the silence, which honestly, is just like her.

“What’s _your_ name?” she demands.

“Oh. Malik,” he answers. She definitely doesn’t look like she recognizes him—but maybe that’s better. He looks her up and down again, notices it looks kind of like she hasn’t had a good meal in a while. No wonder she’s stealing apples, then. “Tell you what. Trade you an apple for some of this fish I bought—”

“I don’t know how to cook fish!!!” she protests, glaring and hugging her apples tighter.

“Then how about I teach you?” Malik offers.

She glares at him for a moment longer. Then she nods, short.

“Show me first, then I’ll see about giving up my apples,” she says.

Malik laughs, fond, taking this in stride because there’s no reason he can think of to question it, really.

“It’s a deal.”

( _He doesn’t find out what’s happening, exactly, until a few of her lifetimes later. He sticks by her, though, every time he finds her. What else is he supposed to do?_

 _Besides. It’s nice to see a familiar face from time to time, in the eternity that stretches out before him. Gives him a reason to keep living._ )


	21. and what if you're already perfectly happy without me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter requires no content warnings

The thing is, Kratos keeps seeing her.

He doesn’t mean to, or anything. It just seems every time he makes the trek to the nearest town to gather supplies or other things, they run into each other. He’ll hear a laugh he recognizes for some reason, and there she is, even though he has no reason to recognize her laugh. He’ll catch a flash of brown in the crowd, and every time he looks twice, it’s her.

It’s… strange.

But he’s curious.

He doesn’t seek her out, exactly, but he does keep an eye out for her. Usually he hates the supply runs. To say he looks forward to them, now, would be an overstatement, but certainly the mystery woman has brightened the monotony of them considerably.

They never talk, they never exchange even passing words. Honestly, he isn’t even sure if she ever notices him.

He catches her sitting still for once in all their passing meetings. She’s sitting at one of the tables outside the café, holding hands with someone else, laughing delightedly at a joke they made and quite suddenly Kratos realizes:

This is stupid.

She’s just some woman. Some _human_ woman.

After all that humanity has done to him, why should he go out of his way just to interact with one of them? One who he has no reason to trust. One who doesn’t even know he exists.

Maybe that’s for the best.

Maybe it’s for the better, that they never meet.

He stops looking for her.


	22. how many times have you done this, Anna?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter contains small references to human experimentation, and minor discussions of hypothetical death

She brews her coffee stronger than she actually likes it, waters it down and doctors it up for herself, and then pours a second mug, undoctored, before she thinks about it.

This is not the first time she’s done it, but this time she stops, blinks.

And then she laughs to herself.

“Anna, he’s not here, and you know he isn’t. But I guess habits this old are hard to break.”

She leaves the mug out for him, this time, even though he’s not going to be around to drink it.

In a fit of anger, fed up, she marches to the mirror, takes her hair in one hand and her dagger in the other, and cuts it all off in one fell swoop.

It’s familiar, somehow. Anger becomes laughter, as the hair falls dead onto the counter, the floor.

“We’ve done this before, haven’t we?” she asks the woman in the mirror.

Sometimes she’s still startled to see her face full and clean, expecting malnourishment or at least scars, but she hasn’t lived a very exciting life this time around, so she sees neither.

Probably the worst part about remembering is the nightmares. She thinks that, likely since the very beginning, her mind has always found ways to play back old memories to her in her sleep, where her deeper subconsciousness tries to process things she shouldn’t have access to in her current life.

Other Annas are lucky.

They don’t know they’ve lived each of these things, these horrible horrible things. They don’t know that all of this is theirs. All of this death and loss and pain and suffering, so much suffering, how should any one woman be expected to live through that kind of suffering—

It’s because she can’t bear to sit still, she knows. Because she can’t bear to stay back and keep quiet, so she takes the fall for it, every time.

Well, she wouldn’t have it any other way, she supposes.

She gets better at remembering to pour only one cup of coffee in the mornings.

She doesn’t become a driver, this time around. She knows she’s had blades other than him, and remembers them all quite fondly, but the thought of getting close to someone new only to lose them again… She knows she probably won’t remember, next time around, but she still can’t bear the thought of it.

She doesn’t get close to anyone, really. Sure, she knows Mark down at the bar pretty well, talks loud and shares too much ( _it’s nothing, really, just a fraction of all the things she could share_ ) with Tabatha because they’re both always buying groceries on the same day. Oh, and there’s Malik, of course. It would be silly to avoid Malik, seeing as he’s known her in more than one previous lifetime. They get together for drinks on Fridays, spend Saturday hungover and complaining and hanging out, rinse and repeat.

They don’t live together, even though Malik’s offered.

It’s nice, of course, to have someone who knows her, knows more than one of her, but she’s still weird about sharing more than a few pieces that is the whole of all the lifetimes she’s lived. They’re hers, even if they aren’t _hers,_ and even if Malik knows some of it, there’s still so much of it that isn’t his to share.

Also she thinks if Malik moved in he’d never stop teasing her about the coffee.

“Dunno why we don’t just get another Aegis, that’d end the war with Tethe’alla quick!” some asshat sitting in the booth behind her says, and Anna about loses it.

Malik, who’s known her long enough to catch warning signals for what are Officially Bad Topics, puts a hand on her arm to slow her. “Anna,” he says, warning.

She knocks back her drink pushes him off of her, then spins around in her seat, sitting on her knees and putting her elbows down right next to the head of Some Fucking Asshat, who looks startled up at her, as do the rest of his friends.

“No, go on,” she tells him brightly. “I absolutely want to hear how you want to be torturing blades in order to kill a bunch of people that are only different from us because they live on the other half of the continent.”

(She does not actually know if they were torturing the Aegises, just has a guess that they were not powering the cannons willingly. That, and she knows very well just what humans are willing to put blades through for their own gain.

_Her husband, strapped to an operating table, he doesn’t know her all he knows is fear and pain and she watches and wonders if it wouldn’t be kinder to slip in there and slit his throat instead of letting this carry on for another month, another year, hoping to get herself into a position just to get him out safely, but—_

_She wants him to live._

_And she doesn’t want to kill him._

_She’s done that before and never again, never again.)_

“Tethe’alla is a bunch of _scum_ —” says a different asshole, while the original asshat glares.

“Torturing? The hell you mean? The Aegises were _heroes!_ ”

“Oh sure, if you want to tell the version of history that makes you look good and cares nothing about the truth,” Anna shoots back. “Humanity was _using them_ , just like they use _every other blade—_ ”

“Anna,” Malik says again, hand on her shoulder and maybe she should listen, because if she goes too far down this rabbit hole everyone’s going to think she’s full of shit or drunk off her ass, because why would she know better than the history books, but—

“The Aegises were heroes!” the original asshat insists, louder, cocky and full of way too much beer. Architect, he smells disgusting. “They were heroes who were kidnapped by that bastard what’s-his-face so that _he_ could use them for his own—”

Anna leaps out of her seat and grabs him by the shirt, shoving him to the floor, punching him in the face once she has him pinned, and she shouldn’t, really, no one fucking understands why she’s furious, no one will think her justified, but—

“Kratos Aurion was the hero!” she spits, furious. “He was a blade looking after his own, and if the Aegises were heroes it was because they stood up and said _enough of this bullshit._ Honestly I’m surprised they haven’t burned the world to ash since humanity is _so intent on hurting blades like them over and over again!_ ”

( _She knows nothing about Mithos, really she doesn’t, but sometimes she’s surprised he hasn’t destroyed the world already, or broken it over his knee and reshaped it in an image where he is on top, which Anna both fears and thinks frankly would be an improvement to the current bullshit_ )

It’s all downhill from there. The asshat punches back and his friends join in and Malik joins in and it’s a good thing Mark likes her otherwise she’d never be allowed in his bar ever again. Somewhere in the scuffle she gets hit with a bottle, which sucks, especially because there _aren’t_ any healing blades in the house, somehow, but that’s alright. Malik’s pretty good with first aid and Mark’s nice enough to let them sit at the counter while Malik patches Anna up, and he’s nice enough to not ask any questions.

Malik isn’t as kind.

“The hell was that about?” he asks, and Anna flinches, but mostly because her face stings when he touches it.

“Nothing,” she tells him.

He scowls at her like he knows she’s lying—of course he does, he knows her too well to not notice—but he just frowns and lets the matter drop.

The best news is that when she looks in the mirror, some days later, and sees a scar on her cheek, she can almost relax.

Here’s another reason she doesn’t let Malik move in with her:

Malik doesn’t know about Kratos.

She likes living alone because it’s easier to bear the loneliness than the thought of sharing her life with someone that isn’t him.

It’s silly, she knows. She’s shared her life with other people before. There have been other cute boys, there have been wonderful women, there have been so many amazing people who aren’t Kratos, but.

She’s spent most of her lifetimes with him, more lifetimes with him than anyone else, and it’s different, since she can remember that. Harder to want to give that piece of her life to anyone else. It wouldn’t be fair she thinks, anyway. She knows she can love other people, but she doesn’t want to find someone this time around only to condemn them to living in a shadow she does not even mean to cast over them.

So she lives alone.

And she makes two cups of coffee, more mornings than she doesn’t.

“The hardest part about all this is that Kratos is alive, you know?” Anna asks the mug of coffee sitting across the table from her, fiddling with her own mug, her breakfast long since finished. “He’s alive, and I could go find him again, if I wanted.”

She even knows exactly where he is, roughly. It’s not exactly a _secret_ to the world that the tower sitting in the southernmost part of neutral territory belongs to Mithos, the Aegis who ran away from the world. Or, maybe it’s a secret _now,_ but it wasn’t some hundred or two hundred years ago, last she saw them. She’d been a Sylvaranti noble, then. Kratos and Mithos were still invited— _invited_ —to peace talks between the countries. She could go visit that tower, ask to see him—

“Not that he’d trust us,” she laughs, to herself.

How could he trust _any_ human, after what they did to him?

“At least we killed Kvar,” Anna muses, triumphant. There are few memories more satisfying than the snap of his neck under her fingers.

She downs what’s left of her coffee, then gathers her empty plate and the empty mug, taking them to the sink to rinse for easier cleaning, later.

“Probably wouldn’t be fair to Kratos, anyway,” she tells her sink, speaking to fill the silence she lives in, speaking to work her thoughts out as she has them, though after that they all come too fast to say aloud. But it wouldn’t be fair, to burden Kratos with all the things she remembers and that he could never. Neither would it be fair, to burden him with all the Lloyds they’ve lost, all the times they’ve lost one another, and furthermore to condemn him only to lose her again. Because he will live forever, now, no more death and rebirth for him. He will only die when he is killed, and she?

She will die in about fifty years, just like any other human.

If she dies like any other Anna, she’s probably only got another twenty years left, actually.

To find him, only to make him lose her—lose her, and likely never find her again?

She doesn’t think she’s ever remembered, in lifetimes before.

She doubts she’ll remember in the next one.

( _She isn’t sure how she’ll face him, anyway, after what Kvar did to him. And maybe that’s selfish, but. How the hell is she supposed to sleep next to him knowing whose heart beats in his chest? How could she keep herself from cracking with her grief, and more than that, manage to never tell him the truth?_

 _He_ cannot _know the truth. She knows him, she knows he’d never survive under the weight of that knowledge. Architect, she barely manages, as it is!_ )

“It’s not selfish, not if it’s protecting him,” she insists to herself, and sets about turning that second mug of coffee into something she’ll drink, because that’s more efficient than pouring two every morning and dumping one down the sink.

Nightmares aren’t the worst, actually.

The dreams where she has her husband and her son again and both of them are alive and happy and nothing ever looks like it’s going to go wrong?

Those are the worst.

She fights for blade rights. Of course she does. It’s in her nature.

She organizes protests against the war, drafts petitions to the state and the military, yells on street corners, punches any asshole who dares suggest blades are merely tools to be used. She’s not sure it’ll be worth anything, because she’s tried this lifetimes before and even when she makes a dent it never _lasts._ The problem is not with the war, or even really the system that regulates the distribution of blades.

The problem is in how blades work inherently, the ways they are trapped by resonance.

She wants to know why the hell the Architect would make a horribly unfair system such as this, where blades are so easy to abuse. If she can ever get her hands on him—wishful fucking thinking, she doubts he’s even real—she’d very much like to give him a piece of her mind.

( _What she doesn’t know, won’t really ever fully understand: the first Kratos she ever knew is also the god who made this world, the first Kratos she ever loved and the Architect who built the system she loathes are the same man._

 _It’s probably better that she doesn’t know. The blade reflected in god’s image is much kinder, anyway._ )

She fights, regardless. The only other option is to sit by and do nothing, and obviously she can’t do that.

“We’ll get it one of these times,” she tells the cup of coffee across the table from her. “And then maybe one day, you’ll trust me again.”


	23. Saya, Lisanne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter requires no content warnings
> 
> ft two of my friend Aly's OCs because we jokingly said "lol Saya is Anna's type" and then I was like _I have the power to make this happen_ and I did
> 
> [visual ref here](https://rarsneezes.dreamwidth.org/5926.html#cutid5)

The tavern lights are low, because it’s well past the time of night for that, the musicians in the corner playing slow songs, mostly to wind the crowd down, not that there’s much of a crowd left, this late at night—er, early in the morning? Anna sits at the bar, leaning against the counter, elbows supporting her weight as much as her back. She reaches for her glass, remembers it’s empty, swirls it idly before she sets it back down. Probably for the best, anyway. She’s only lightly buzzed, and maybe she should stay that way. She hums to herself, eyes fixed on a certain pair in the crowd.

A pair of women, both blades, both Anna’s. Lisanne; short silver hair and a smile like sunshine, green ether lines shining against brown skin, wearing the summer dress she talked Anna into buying her just yesterday, the one with the flowy pink skirt that flares out when she twirls. Earlier she was laughing, loud and bright, but now she rests her head against Saya’s chest—Saya, the other blade, long brown hair tied up in a bun on her head, dark violet ether lines on brown skin. Saya wears what she always does: black pants, black shirt, her jacket laid over the chair next to Anna. The emotion bleed sings soft and content, maybe a little anxious, but Anna keeps her nose out of it. It’s not her business.

She should probably stop watching them, for all the deep yearning it stirs in her chest, but they’re having fun and it’s nice to see them enjoy themselves. She’s allowed to indulge in that, right? Right? It’s not weird.

Alright, maybe she wants it, wants _them,_ in ways she isn’t sure how to deal with, how to bring up. If she’d acted a little sooner, ‘bout three months ago, maybe she wouldn’t be in this position right now, but things between her and Saya were slow if electrifying, and so when she added Lisanne to the resonance, the boat rocked, then sailed without Anna on it. Which, like? That’s fine. She’s not petty, she’s not jealous, she’s the kind of girl who can deal, even though being the third wheel to your very-happily-in-love blades is… kind of weird.

Ah, well.

“Want another drink?” asks the bartender, and also her other best friend. She turns to look over her shoulder at Malik, grinning a little.

( _She doesn’t remember him, of course. But he likes looking out for her, and she finds she trusts him, likes him. He’s a hard guy not to like._ )

“Pass,” she tells him. “Should pr’bly head to bed, honestly. Let them have their fun.” She nods towards her blades.

Malik’s eyes narrow, a sad kind of look, a _knowing_ kind of look that makes Anna’s smile fall a few inches. She just barely refrains from squirming where she sits. She doesn’t really wanna talk about it, doesn’t want to hear his advice, because she’s _fine,_ really, so she does the smart thing and changes the subject.

“Hey, can I ask you a favor though, Malik?” she asks.

Malik considers her a moment, but he’s yet to say no to her, so: “What is it?” he says, though his eyes say he’d like to go back to that other topic they haven’t even started talking about, yet, the one that Anna would rather continue not talking about.

“Listen, just, y’know,” she says, a little slurred. “When I die.” And it’s _when,_ not an _if_ —she’s human! The only real question is whether or not she’ll live to reach old age or not, though Anna has a feeling it’ll probably be the _not_. “Y’think you could, I dunno. Look after them? Find them a new driver? A _good_ one, y’know.”

Malik blinks at her. Hastily, Anna adds:

“I mean, it doesn’t have to be _you_! Just…” She turns her attention back to her blades, watching them sway to the music, the emotion bleed full and warm. She loves them both so much, even though she hasn’t known them that long. “I want them to be taken care of, and happy, even when I’m gone,” she says. “And maybe- maybe I want them to stick together, y’know? Even if they won’t remember—” Anna realizes this is starting to get away from her, wonders how much is the alcohol talking. “I dunno,” she says, in defeat. “Maybe I’m getting stupidly sentimental.”

Malik considers her a long moment, and then he smiles.

“No, I think your heart’s in the right place,” he tells her, and though he _could_ be polishing his glasses for tomorrow’s business, his rag is on the counter, and his attention is all on her, loving and centered like Anna remembers her father being when she was young. “And it’s a reasonable concern, to fear what is going to happen to your blades, after you’re gone.”

“So… you’ll look after them?”

“Of course.”

Anna smiles at him, tells him thanks, and goes back to watching her blades. Malik leans his arms on the counter, crossed and supporting his weight, as watching Anna watch them. Anna’s not looking, but if she was, she’d hate that knowing glint in his eyes.

“You know,” Malik says, slow and conversational, just a touch too smug. “You could just talk to them about it.”

Anna goes carefully still, grateful that between the brown of her skin and the low lights of the tavern her blush isn’t going to stand _out._ She wants to cover her face with her hands but that’d just give her away so instead she doesn’t move and—

“About what?” she attempts to say evenly, but her voice squeaks at the end there.

“Don’t ‘about what’ me, Anna, I know a girl hopelessly in love when I see one.”

The only thing Anna can think of to say is _shut up_ and that'll condemn her as much as anything else, so Anna just keeps her mouth shut and lets her silence speak for her. Maybe she should just excuse herself to bed for real, to be honest. That's one way out of the conversation.

She spends so much time deliberating that she gives Malik the space to keep speaking.

“I’m only saying, you might be amazed about what communication can do,” he says. “You can’t spend so much time assuming what your partners think without bothering to ask them, that’s not fair to you _or_ them.”

Anna turns her head to send him a curious glance. “Sounds like you're speaking from experience.”

“I am,” Malik admits. “And that experience says do yourself a favor and talk to them.”

“Yeah, but—”

She doesn’t get to finish, because Malik straightens. “Hello, ladies!” he says, cheerily. “You two look like you had fun! You turning in for the night? Or just here to collect your driver?”

Anna turns to who Malik’s addressing and, sure enough, there’s Lisanne and Saya, Saya trailing Lisanne kind of like a shadow, like she always does, their hands linked, fingers looped together. Saya fidgets like she’s nervous, her cheeks glowing faintly purple with a blush, but Lisanne is all smiles, and she winks at Anna (!!?? _be still, racing heart,_ ) before she regards Malik with the kindest smile.

“We _did_ have fun, thank you Malik,” Lisanne says. “Your tavern is probably my favorite place to be, every time we’re in town.”

“Well, I certainly enjoy your company, and your patronage,” Malik laughs. ( _Not that he has charged Anna a single gald in the entire time they’ve known each other._ ) “The three of you have the same room you always do—oh! Unless you’re here for drinks…”

“Actually,” Lisanne begins, but Saya squeezes her hand.

“Maybe not here, love,” she says, quiet.

The emotion bleed is tight with nervousness, for some reason, which only makes Anna nervous, as well. She looks between her blades, trying to read what this is, but the only thing written on Lisanne’s face under that smile is determination. Are they up to something? Why does Anna get the feeling they’re up to something. The way Saya _isn’t_ looking at her, contrasted with Lisanne’s too-fond smiles that she keeps sending Anna is… Well there’s probably no way she’s going to get her heart to calm down unless she goes and does a lap or three around the building, which Malik will tease her endlessly for if she does, and.

She’s fine, she’s fine. She just wishes Lisanne wasn’t so fucking _cute_ and _attractive,_ wishes Saya’s nervous shyness didn’t _completely undo her like this._

“Well, Anna, we wanted to talk to you,” Lisanne says. “Soo…” She drags the sound out, the rest of the request clear enough. Saya doesn’t want to talk here, so upstairs they need to go, unless Anna’s gonna tell them no actually she’d rather go run a mile or five, but like, she’s too buzzed for that, and it’s probably 3am by now, so that’s a horrible idea anyway. So.

So.

“Yeah, sure,” Anna says, because Lisanne probably needs to hear it’s chill and Anna’s down to be talked to. She slides off the barstool and picks up Saya’s jacket for her, just so she has something to do with her hands. Lisanne leads the way, Saya still tailing her, and Anna follows after.

Malik catches her eye before she heads up the stairs after her blades. He sends her a knowing smile and an encouraging thumbs up. Flustered, Anna flips him off and storms up the stairs before he can respond. Malik’s roaring laughter behind her does not help _at all._ Architect. Relationships are hell.

Lisanne and Saya beat her to their room, of course. Standard fare tavern room, two beds, their bags already up here on the small table. Did Malik bring those up? Did Saya? Anna doesn’t remember. Also, minus the fact the beds are made, this place looks exactly like it did when they left it, last. Did Malik even rent it out to anyone else??

Anyway, anyway, not the thing to focus on here, Anna. She slings Saya’s jacket over one of the chairs, turns to her blades. They both sit on the edge of one of the beds, Lisanne bouncing with her excitement, hands in her lap, Saya leaning back with her hands behind her to brace her weight, all casual and nervous smiles against Lisanne’s sunny exuberance.

“So, what’s up?” Anna asks, and moves to sit down on the opposite bed, legs crossed under her, facing them.

“Okay, so,” Lisanne says, and she’s blushing a little as well, green glow in her cheeks, but she delivers the words with the same easiness she does everything else. “We both think you’re hot, and funny, and really good to us, so we wanted to ask if you wanted in on this relationship.”

Oh.

_Oh holy shit._

“Uhhhh,” Anna says, ineloquently, mouth filling a silence because she hates those, even though her mind is still frantically scrambling to process that proposition. What the fuck, what the fuck, she didn’t even have to say anything— _did Malik know._

Saya drags a hand down her face, suffering. “Why not just ask her to fuck us at that point, Lisanne! Honestly, I could have said all that.”

Anna’s face gets very, _very_ hot, and she sits and stares, startled into being completely still.

“Anna?” Lisanne asks, cautiously.

“I,” Anna says, then slaps her hands against her knees and uses the leverage to lean as far towards her blades as physically possible. “Hang on. Are you two. _Serious_?”

Lisanne nods. “Very serious.”

Saya’s blush only gets deeper. “Would be lying if I said I haven’t been thinking about you like this for a while,” she admits, tugging at the collar of her shirt.

“It just doesn’t feel right to leave you out,” Lisanne adds, her smile still bright. “ _Especially_ if you want this, too.”

Saya nods and manages a croaky little “Yeah,” to accompany Lisanne’s argument.

_Holy fucking shit._

Okay, cool, fuck, what the fuck. Anna isn’t sure how to deal with this? She wants it, of course. Oh, she wants it an _embarrassing_ amount, honestly, her mind already gleefully providing her with all the ways she wants to trace her hands over Lisanne’s skin, all the ways she wants to learn how Saya’s mouth fits in hers, and—more than that, Architect, so much more than that. The fact she can just _have that,_ now?? She’s delighted but a little overwhelmed, and—

Fuck, they’re waiting on her to say something, huh.

“Okay first of all, yes, please, absolutely,” she gets out, in a rush. The emotion bleed is bright and clear and full of a breakneck kind of energy, Anna’s eagerness meeting Saya and Lisanne’s acceptance and plunging headfirst into it. “Second of all were you serious about asking me to fuck you because consider me incredibly turned on and _immensely_ interested right now.”

Saya’s entire face turns purple with her blush, and Lisanne laughs.

“Well,” she says, and gets to her feet. She crosses the distance between herself and Anna, places her hands on the bed on either side of Anna’s hips and bends down. “We could always see where the night takes us.”

And then Anna loses herself to the glow of Lisanne’s blush and the green of her eyes and the taste of her lips.


	24. The Artificial Aegis Project

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the morality of creating weapons and calling them children.
> 
> On the yearning for someone you've never met but your soul will always remember.
> 
> On one blade's escape from a relationship that thrives on the fact he can be made to forget.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi so. this wasn't supposed to be 17k, but then I was like "oh I'll just add. one more scene" about five or ten times over.... oops? part of that is because i added Jade from totAbyss and then _immediately_ slam dunked him into the floor (SORRY JADE,) but i don't regret it one bit.
> 
> in fact i regret it so little i'm currently working on rewriting this specific installment to flesh it out. [you can read it here!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24709642/chapters/59724136) and in the mean time, consider this an abridged version of the lore for _25 lives_.
> 
> this chapter features a _lot_ of bonus characters (in fact [it only has one symphonia character and it's Anna??](https://twitter.com/rarsneezes/status/1162900902652420097) it's fine it's fine)-- as usual, you can find visual references for them all [here](https://rarsneezes.dreamwidth.org/5926.html#cutid6)!
> 
> **content warnings: major character death, graphic depictions of violence**

“Hi,” Anna says to the first of her three new coworkers, introductions happening over coffee and donuts while they wait for their boss to come and tell them what _exactly_ they’ve been hired for, because whatever-it-is is top-secret classified information that they weren’t allowed to know until now, after they got through half a million security checks. Her coworker is a man of average-build, looks like he hasn’t been outside for long in years, has fluffy blonde hair that falls down to his shoulders and is wearing a dress shirt of the prettiest pale blue Anna’s ever seen. She reaches out to shake his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Dr…?”

He laughs as he shakes her hand. He has a nice laugh, honestly, full of mirth even if it has some edges. “Just Klaus is fine,” he assures her, with a grin that’s a touch cocky. “I don’t see the need to keep up formalities if we’re going to be working together for the next few years.”

He has a point, there.

“Then just Anna’s fine for me, too,” she tells him. She sends a curious look over at the other two women in this room, but they’re still busy talking to each other, so she might as well get to know Klaus a little better while she waits for their conversation to lull so they can do introductions there. “What’d you do to get yourself roped into this mess?” she asks, and he laughs some more at her choice of phrasing.

“I’ve been doing research on how blades interact with and manipulate ether,” Klaus answers, sitting back down in his chair at the table in this conference room. The chair rolls a little backwards underneath his weight, but he doesn’t seem to care. Anna raises her eyebrows, because _that’s_ a neat area of study ( _it’s never occurred to her to ask_ how _blades can manipulate ether when humans can’t, because it’s just a thing they can_ do _and she’s okay with that_ ). Klaus continues, grin cocky: “Among other things, I mean, but I’m almost certain that’s what they took an interest in.” He raises his eyebrows at her, tilts his head to the side. “What about you?”

“Genetics.”

“Really?”

“My college thesis was on blade memories,” Anna answers, taking her own seat again. She reaches over to grab her cup of coffee, takes a sip, instantly regrets it. The coffee’s blacker than is anywhere near reasonable, and there’s no sugar here or anything to fix that. She glares at the coffee, then at Klaus since he’s laughing at her, sets the cup back down, continues talking. “Everyone knows blades forget everything when they die, but everyone also knows that their personality never changes much between the lifetimes they live, so I wanted to see if that kind of thing was stored, like, in their core crystals or what.”

Klaus nods along, a trace of that smirk still on his lips but otherwise looking genuinely interested. “Did you find anything?”

Anna laughs. “Nothing conclusive, at least not on the DNA side of things,” she answers.

“You should ask Myyah, then,” says a new voice, and Anna looks up to another of her new coworkers. She has brown skin a few shades darker than Anna’s own and long silver hair that’s tied up in the back, and since she’s sitting on the opposite side of the table it’s hard to tell if that’s a red _dress_ or just a _really nice_ shirt. She nods to the woman sitting next to her. “She probably knows blade DNA better than the Architect himself does.”

The woman in question blushes, faintly, then turns her head away so her purple hair falls into her face to hide it, pressing a knuckle to her mouth to stifle her little laugh. “Oh, I highly doubt that,” she hedges, though underneath the display of embarrassment she sounds _proud._

“Myyah…?” Anna repeats, quietly, squinting at the woman. She looks… familiar? Maybe? Anna swears she knows that face, (and _damn_ does her haircut look cute as hell, down to her shoulders in the front but cut to the base of her head in the back like that), but she can’t place _where from._

“Wait a moment,” Klaus says. “Myyah Hawa? _The_ Myyah Hawa?” He looks about ready to leap out of his seat to get closer to her ( _an easy feat, since they are directly across from each other_ ). When she raises her head and nods, Klaus breaks into a grin. “Your research is _incredible,_ ” he gushes. “Without it I think I would still be in the middle of putting mine together.”

“What did you say your research was?” Myyah asks, and as they get to discussing that, the woman with the silver hair clears her throat and turns her attention to Anna.

“I’m Galea, by the way,” she introduces herself.

“Anna,” Anna says, in case Galea missed it. “Why do you think you’re here?”

“I’ve done a lot of work with robotics and artificial intelligence,” Galea answers, taking a sip of her coffee. _Architect,_ how can she _stand_ that stuff? “Which actually has me either concerned or confused about why I’m here with the three of you. Wonder what they want us for, anyway.”

“S’pose we’ll find out,” Anna says, cheerily. Their boss should be here, like, literally any minute now. Actually Anna thinks he’s late. That bodes well (not). She opens her mouth to say something else to Galea, but doesn’t get the chance, because—

“That’s fascinating, really, and I want to hear about it later, but,” Myyah is saying, and then she’s turning her attention to Anna, and under that laser-focused gaze Anna sits up a little straighter, heart beating a little faster. Myyah scowls for a second, but nods slowly, recognition and fondness lighting in her eyes. “You’re Anna, right?” she asks, eager. “We took classes together in college.”

“Oh,” Anna says, and then, “ _Oh!_ ” as it hits her. “Yeah, that’s right, I remember now!! I… Hm. Did we graduate at the same time? Because…” For the life of her, she cannot remember being there when Myyah presented her thesis, and if Klaus is making such a big deal about it she _should_ remember it, so…

Myyah shakes her head, which is a relief. “Oh, no,” she says, and her smile is _beautiful_. “I was a year behind you.”

That sounds about right, Anna thinks. “Architect, it’s been—how many years?” she asks, trying to do the math, but.

“Far too long, in my opinion,” Myyah says, and honestly she’s right. Anna’s about to comment on that, except then Myyah _also_ takes a drink of coffee and just like Galea, doesn’t even make a face about it.

“ _How_ are you drinking that straight?” Anna demands, curious and disgusted all at once. “This is the worst coffee I’ve ever had.”

Myyah laughs. “You like yours with enough cream it doesn’t even taste like coffee anymore, right?” she asks.

Anna blinks. “Yeah,” she says, caught somewhere between surprised and touched. “You remembered?”

“Oh. Oh, yes, I- I have a very good memory,” Myyah says, in a rush. She’s blushing, so Anna raises her eyebrows, wondering if perhaps it’s a _little_ more than that (not that she’d mind, if it was), but before she can press the matter the door _finally_ swings open.

Two men step into the conference room. The first, wearing green, has long black hair tied back, and wears glasses that Anna imagines _can’t_ be doing him any good, given how small they are, and how they hang at the end of his nose so he can look _over_ them. Anna’s pretty sure that’s their boss, Citan Uzuki, because the man standing to his left also stands a step behind him in a way that screams to Anna that he is a blade deferring to his driver. His shirt is high-necked ( _a darker green than Citan’s, edging into blue_ ) hiding where his core crystal would sit on his collarbone, and between the long sleeves and the gloves it’s impossible to see any ether lines etched into his skin, but Anna _thinks_ she can see a faint red glow through the fabric of his high-collar shirt, and his eyes—framed by oval glasses in a way that makes them hard _not_ to notice—are red. Red’s an unusual color for a human, so he probably isn’t one. His hair—brown—falls midway down his back, and he’s smiling faintly.

“Sorry for the delay,” Citan says, and he’s smiling as well, but unlike his blade, Citan’s smile is smug in all the ways that make Anna kind of want to punch him, if only he were not her boss. “Something came up that I had to take care of.”

“You’re finally going to tell us what you gathered us for, then?” Klaus asks, hands behind his head.

“Of course.” Citan steps the rest of the way into the room, while his blade closes the door behind them. Hands resting behind his back, and still smirking that shitty smirk, he continues: “The four of you have been chosen by Tethe’alla for a very important, very secretive research project that I have high hopes in. Myyah, you have worked before with Jade—” at his name, the blade beside Citan lifts his hand in a casual wave, “—on artificial blades.”

Myyah nods, and Anna thinks _holy shit._

“You… want us to create artificial blades?” Galea asks, cautiously.

“More than that, actually,” Citan tells her. “We’re hoping that the four of you, when you put your heads together, can create an artificial Aegis.”

“You… may have to walk me through that again,” Anna says, sending a glance at Myyah.

Myyah sighs, but it’s all fondness. She beckons Anna closer, and Anna complies. If they weren’t in separate desk chairs, Anna might honestly be in Myyah’s lap at this point. She settles for resting her chin in Myyah’s shoulder to get a better look at Myyah’s computer screen, which Myyah doesn’t seem to mind at all.

“These, here,” she says, gesturing at the screen of her computer. Or, rather, to the open text box, which displays two lines of sequenced letters that—to an untrained eye—might look like nonsense. “These are the Aegis strands,” Myyah explains. “They dictate how blades input and output ether.”

“Right,” Anna says. She recognizes them as written forms of DNA strands, obviously, but her eyes kind of skim over it, not sure what exactly there is to take in, specifically. And instead of asking about them, she asks: “Do you have these _memorized_?” she asks.

“I have a very good memory,” Myyah says, simply. And, Anna knows this about her through experience over these past few weeks, though perhaps it’s encapsulated best by the fact Myyah’s desk is completely empty other than her mug of coffee and the open journal she is currently working from. In contrast to Anna’s desk—littered with reminders and at least three to-do lists because she keeps losing them after making them—Myyah definitely looks like she has her life together. Or at least, better at staying focused. ( _Anna’s always known she’s kind of bad at that, though._ )

“It’s still incredible,” Anna presses, poking Myyah lightly in the ribs—though not _too_ hard, because if Myyah startles, Anna’s jaw is going to regret it.

“Memorizing something I stared at for hours on end over the course of years probably isn’t that incredible.”

“Well, _you’re_ incredible,” Anna insists, just to see Myyah blush. She grins and revels in the wake of it, even as Myyah dislodges her so she can’t lean on her shoulder anymore, but that’s okay. “Anyway. What are we doing with these? It’s not as easy as just cloning these strands and getting an Aegis, right?”

“No,” Myyah agrees. “If it were that easy, Jade and I would already have an Aegis to show off.”

“ _Really_?”

“Mmhmm. Artificial blades—they’re just a little bit of genetics, a little bit of ether manipulation, truly not that difficult to create, though we’ve only made a few. Proof of concept, you know.”

“Right,” Anna says, and wonders where the blades are now, wonders who’s driving them, since blades cannot live without a driver. Or are their core crystals just being kept in storage, somewhere? She doesn’t get to ask, though, because Myyah steamrolls right over her.

“We’re still trying to figure out what exactly makes an Aegis an Aegis, because it’s certainly not just these two DNA strands,” Myyah continues, sharp and clear as she dictates her knowledge and how it pertains the job ahead of them. “Which is why you’re here, and Klaus is running the numbers from the ether side of things, and—well Galea probably has the easiest job of all of us, actually, but…”

“Why _am_ I here?” Anna asks. “I mean—Galea’s right, you really _do_ know blade genetics better than the Architect himself does, I think. Why drag me into this?”

Myyah turns to her, looking somehow, for some reason, _hurt_. “Oh, Anna,” she says, gently. “Don’t sell yourself short. Even if you didn’t come to any real conclusions, your research on blade memories is still relevant, considering Aegises keep their memories regardless of how many times they die and are reborn.” When Myyah puts it like that, Anna realizes she has a point, but Myyah isn’t even _finished,_ there. “Besides, you’d be amazed how few people in Tethe’alla know anything about _blade_ genetics, specifically,” she continues, her smile soft and bright. “Of course I asked for you.”

Anna has a feeling this is maybe about more than her knowledge of genetics, but you know what? She can’t say she minds. “Were there… other options?” she asks, meeting Myyah’s eyes. They’re _so so so_ purple, the dark kind of purple that’s kind of like the perfect night sky, not that Anna’s much good at poetry. She wants to get lost in them, but the quirk of a smile on Myyah’s lips makes it hard to linger in her eyes, because that smile’s much nicer to look at.

“None that mattered,” Myyah says.

Anna feels her heart stop, restart, and has to bite her lip to keep from screaming.

She hastily changes the subject, because if she starts this _now_ they’ll never get work done.

( _In about six months, she’ll gladly waste Citan’s money spending hours at work where she and Myyah decidedly_ aren’t _working, but it’s a little early for that right now, in—whatever this is, that their relationship is._ )

“Anyway!!” Anna says, dragging her attention back to Myyah’s computer screen. “Is- Is this all we have to work with? Because, I mean we only have data for one of the original Aegises, and this…” She gestures, vaguely. “I’m used to having a little more to work with than this.”

“It’s difficult, I know,” Myyah agrees, with a somber nod. She is still staring at Anna. “If only we could get Sylvarant to give us one of the shards they have of Martel’s core crystal, but they won’t even admit to having them—”

The moment Myyah says _Martel_ it’s like Anna’s world goes slightly off-kilter, her hearing fuzzy. She gets the distinct sense of confusion-anger bursting in her chest, a distant horror—and why shouldn’t she be horrified, knowing that a blade was _killed, shattered,_ shards stolen away to do who knows what with. But it’s more than that, too, like looking at sepia-toned photographs of your childhood, grasping a memory of something you _know_ you did even though you barely _remember_ doing it. The image of a scandalized headline over the news, dated hundreds of years ago, from that one journal company that the prison ( _prison??_ ) still received even though Sylvarant had tried to shut it down. The taste of someone else’s grief, something older, ancient in her blood. A sad man brokenly grinding out fragments of a tale, of the death that befell his sister and everything that came after, and though she aches with his sorrow even she doesn’t quite think all that’s worth the lingering pain in her bones and the stone that’s stuck in her skin—

What.

_What._

“…Anna?” Myyah’s voice, worried.

Anna shakes her head, blinks.

“I’m—” she says, registering the somewhat-uncomfortable press of her chair’s arm against her folded knees, the too-cool air of the lab, Myyah’s face, _Myyah’s face_. “Here. I’m here,” she says, hastily.

“What was…?” Myyah says, slowly, but can’t quite form the question.

“It’s- I’m fine, really, I don’t know what…” And she really doesn’t know _what_ , because the memories are slipping away from her like ether from a bleeding blade, evaporating once they have escaped her grasp, though leaving behind the ache of a wound. “It happens, sometimes,” she tells Myyah. “Like déjà vu, I guess? It’s fine.”

Myyah doesn’t seem convinced, but she lets it go. “If you’re sure…”

And she keeps talking about their research, their task, and so on, but Anna isn’t really listening anymore.

It’s worse, sometimes, than it is others.

By this point everyone on the team is well aware of it.

There are words and topics that will send Anna spiraling through memories that aren’t hers, so everyone’s learned to avoid them, or talk around them, with phrases Slightly Less specific. Sometimes it’s not as bad as a spiral. Just a lapse, where she says something she has no right knowing and then immediately forgets saying. She has to have her coworkers proofread her reports before she sends them in to make sure she’s got the right date on it—putting the wrong day by a number or two happens to anyone, but Anna’s prone to getting it wrong by _several hundred years_.

Right now she’s spiraling.

Hands pressed over her ears so her already too-loud heartbeat echoes in her eardrums, hiding under her desk because???? she isn’t sure and couldn’t give a clear answer if asked, it’s just this is where her body decided to put her while in the middle of her haze, and she squeezes her eyes shut and tries to breathe quietly, quieter than that, Anna, _you cannot make a sound._ Open your eyes, Anna. You have to watch. You have to be careful. You cannot get caught now, not _now,_ not after _everything—_

Caught by who? She doesn’t know. She feels like a caged rabbit, or perhaps one that’s about to get caged again, and and and and—

Noise, suddenly. Anna scrambles backward, holds her breath, watches.

Feet approaching. Dress shoes, slacks, that’s probably fine, but she still holds very still.

“Anna?” a voice calls. She knows that voice, but can’t place a name, just that it’s _not the voice she wants to be hearing. (She yearns for a different one in the deepest parts of her, yearns for a voice she barely remembers, it’s been so so so long—_ ) “Anna, are you—oh.”

A man kneels down in front of her hiding space so he can peer at her. Blond hair, loose tie, cautious smile. She knows him, she knows she does, but cannot grasp that any better than she can grasp why the fuck she decided she needed to be down here to begin with. He looks worried, but fond.

“The year’s 2417,” he says, smoothly, with practice. “You’re at the lab—the Artificial Aegis Project lab.” The words _mean_ something, and Anna latches onto that greedily, trying to piece it all together. “Myyah’s neck-deep in her work, and Galea went home early, but I’m here. Klaus, remember? We spent four drunken hours geeking out about _Wheel of Time,_ and I bought you your favorite coffee mug…”

He trails off, watching her, like he’s waiting for recognition.

Anna thinks she’s got it, though, it’s starting to make sense, but one thing’s bothering her—

“Where’s Kratos?” she asks.

Klaus blinks at her.

“Who? If you know a Kratos, you’ve never told us about him.”

“Oh.”

Weird.

Klaus licks his lips, and continues: “Your, uh, mothers’ names are Elise and Monica, you have a little sister named Lucia. You dated someone named Alphonse in college, complain about him from time to time… Any of this ringing a bell?”

“A little,” Anna says. “It- Yeah.” Her head’s starting to clear up, for sure. “Yeah, I think it’s passed.”

“ _Do_ you know a Kratos?” Klaus asks, eyebrows raised.

“No,” Anna says, now that her head is clear enough to know that for certain. “I feel like maybe I should, though?” she admits. “But as far as I know, I definitely don’t.”

“Hm,” Klaus says, and nothing more for a moment. Then he sends her a wry look, and a gentle laugh. “Anyway, are you going to come out from under your desk?”

“Oh, yeah. Right.”

“Seriously, Galea, this is incredible,” Anna says, admiring Galea’s work. Frankly, it’s impossible to tell the girl on the table _isn’t_ a regular blade at first glance; minus the fact her ether lines don’t glow at all, and there’s an empty slot in her collarbone where a core crystal _should_ go, but they haven’t finished the core crystal yet. Of course, closer inspection of the artificial girl will show one where the wires and metal meet under synthetic skin, and where there’s paneling in her stomach that can be removed for an ether furnace to be installed, but. “Even if this doesn’t work…” Anna whispers, awed.

The problem they’d been running into with their attempts at creating an artificial Aegis was the matter of keeping the blade _stable_ and corporeal _,_ under the strain of all the raw energy they held. Maybe resonance with a driver would grant them stability, but Myyah wasn’t convinced—she’d confided that resonance was a tricky thing to reverse engineer, and that all the artificial blades she’d created couldn’t resonate at all. If _they_ were perfectly stable without drivers, why not an Aegis?

Together they’d determined that an Aegis would likely be better off without resonance, anyway. No unfortunate assassinations because the driver was found defenseless and offed, Klaus had argued. Losing memories wouldn’t be a problem at all, Galea had added. _‘I wouldn’t dare hand resonance over to_ Citan,’ Myyah had insisted, and, thinking of Jade and how… _weird_ his relationship was with his driver, Anna too had argued in the name of freedom.

So this artificial body was their compromise.

“All she needs now is Klaus’ ether furnace and your core crystal,” Galea says, fondly, determined. “And then we’ll have… something. Maybe not an Aegis, exactly. But something close enough to mimic one.”

“Hopefully that’ll be enough for Citan,” Anna says, and Galea laughs.

Citan’s very particular, and very condescending about their perceived progress, or lack thereof. Not that he’s _openly_ an asshole about it, but the quiet dissatisfaction is almost worse, Anna thinks. Especially considering how entitled he acts, and how he talks like he’s helping even though she hasn’t seen him in this lab once. Jade does more work around the lab than Citan does ( _when Citan doesn’t have Jade off doing who knows what else, anyway_ ) and sometimes Anna wonders how much credit Citan is taking for their work. ( _She’s almost certain he’s taking credit for all of Jade’s work, with the excuse that Jade is his blade, but that’s a load of bullshit and makes Anna sick to think about, besides._ ) ( _Myyah’s right, she hopes Citan never gets the chance to drive their children—their Aegises._ )

“Somehow I doubt it,” Galea sighs. “But so long as we impress the rest of the committee, it doesn’t really matter what Citan thinks, right?”

“Right,” Anna agrees, somewhat distracted, now, as she looks over Galea’s handiwork again. A part of her wants to touch, to brush the girl’s blue hair out of her face, but for all that the body before her is lifeless, it still feels kind of akin to touching someone while they’re sleeping, and that’s weird. So. Instead Anna hums, eyes fixed on the girl’s face. “…She needs a name, too,” she says, quiet.

Galea looks up at her. “You have any ideas?” she asks.

Anna snaps her head up to look at Galea, squinting at Galea’s patient smile and curiosity. “Shouldn’t you name her?” she argues. “ _You_ made the body.”

“You and Myyah made the core crystal, and theoretically, that’s where the soul is,” Galea argues right back. “So you have as much right as I do to name her.”

“Should probably be a group effort,” Anna mumbles, blushing, as she recalls a conversation she and Myyah had recently—about children, and hypothetically what they would name them if they had any, as if they weren’t currently in the process of _creating_ one. She remembers the one name she had suggested, as if she could forget it, seeing as it’s one of two that she always thinks about naming her children, and she remembers Myyah saying it was a wonderful name ( _as if Myyah has not praised all of Anna’s ideas as wonderful, except when they are objectively terrible_ ) and she wonders if she should share it now or if she should consult Myyah first, or- or…

“Well?” Galea presses, and Anna wonders if she’s enjoying watching Anna slowly light herself on fire.

“Poppi,” Anna says. “I’ve always wanted to name a child Poppi.”

Elsewhere, unbeknownst to Anna or any of her fellow coworkers, Jade stands in the ruins of an old facility, watching his driver and some hapless workers his driver dragged with them inspect the old machinery. Or rather, one should say Jade is watching his driver watch _everyone else_ do all the work, because Citan has never lifted a finger to do dirty work in his entire life.

The facility is run down, enough so that even the lights aren’t working ( _though someone’s on that_ ), and in the meantime they’re seeing by spheres of light that a light-aligned blade has produced for them. It’s also _freezing,_ given the location and the lack of insulation, never mind the holes in the roof through which snow has fallen. Not that Jade notices the cold, ice-aligned as he is, but whether he wants to or not he is keenly aware of Citan’s discomfort. Humans aren’t meant for long in temperatures like this, and blades, meant to be their protectors, are prone to worry…

But Jade doesn’t worry, instead he allows himself to take small satisfaction at Citan’s suffering ( _though he keeps it far away from the emotion bleed between them, of course_ ) and instead focuses on assessing the facility. Outside of the broken electricity and the holes in the roof, there’s rubble to be moved, snow and dust to clean, machines to rewire. Before long Jade’s attention is pulled away from the rubble and the battered control console, eyes fixing instead on the pod in the adjacent room. Merely looking at it and _knowing_ what it is, _knowing_ that that is where they put the Aegises to steal their ether and power a weapon like no other, makes Jade’s ether run cold, but he wants a better look, wants to gather as much information as he can, so he approaches it, feeling Citan’s eyes on his back all the while.

The pod itself is in pieces, wires shredded and metal bent in half. The destruction appears to have been done by a very enthusiastic light blade, if Jade had to guess, ( _though good for them, he thinks_ ). The whole pod will need to be rebuilt, replaced, rewired. His eyes pass over the remnants of restraints that were clearly meant to trap the Aegis within the pod, and his mouth curls with distaste that he immediately cuts off from Citan’s reach, burying it underneath a mask of pleasant curiosity.

Jade wishes he wasn’t here.

Jade wishes he could have stayed at the lab, helping with the artificial Aegis project, perhaps helping to sabotage it. Of course, where Citan goes, he goes, unless Citan needs him to run an errand that Citan is too lazy to do himself. This errand was too important to send Jade alone on, though, so they’re both here.

“What do you think, Jade?” Citan calls.

Jade thinks this is despicable. Jade thinks he’d like to find a way to make it so this cannon never works again, rather than work to restore it. Jade thinks that he’s going to be sick with anger, because his driver has only ever considered blades as tools, and creating an artificial Aegis only to condemn them to _this_ is a sin like no other, and he wants no part in it.

Not that he could ever hope to escape.

Citan says, Jade does.

( _But there’s a reason Jade does not help around the lab as much as he could._ )

All of this resentment and all of these murderous thoughts will bring Jade nothing more than pain and regret if voiced or discovered, so he keeps them as far away from Citan as he can, and when he turns to face his driver, it’s with a smile.

“Well, I’d hate to be the blade in charge of cleaning this mess up,” is what he says, his tone carefully casual.

Citan chuckles, lightly.

Jade counts himself safe, for now.

He wishes he could tell his coworkers what _exactly_ they are creating an Aegis for, since none of them know about the cannon. ( _It’s been four hundred years, and the cannons have—for the most part—faded from everyone’s memory._ ) But…

Jade thinks of the notes hidden amongst his personal things; the tally of how many times he has died and been resurrected with Citan specifically as his driver; the warning a previous him left to himself; the knowledge that, as far as he is aware, Citan has no qualms about killing him should he find reason to.

And maybe that’s a fair price, for getting his coworkers to all quit the project, to ensure no blades suffer in this fashion.

Except…

Citan will just hire someone else.

And if Jade dies, he forgets. If he forgets, he won’t be told again after he’s been reborn, and then he will have no reason to be hesitant about helping the new hires be more efficient about creating an artificial Aegis, just as Citan wants.

( _So long as Citan lives, Jade will never be free._ )

“At the conspiracy theories again, Anna?” comes a voice, fond.

Anna pulls her head out of the book she’s hunched over, trying to read it from only the glow of her computer screen, since the rest of the lab’s lights are low. The book’s been highlighted and the margins written all over by this point, so it’s a good thing she has more than enough money to repay the library for it. If she ever gets around to that. First she smiles at the sound of Myyah’s voice, then she catches herself and glares, swiveling around in her chair.

“They aren’t conspiracy theories,” she insists, firmly. “We’re being kept in the dark about _something,_ I’m sure of it!” There are too many inconsistencies, and, sure, maybe Sylvarant and Tethe’alla are telling different stories about the same war—why wouldn’t they—but there are inconsistencies in _Tethe’alla’s_ history, like whoever’s writing the current history is just making it up as they go. “We know so much about the Aegises, and so little about their driver, and I think it’s because they’re _hiding_ something.”

“You just like reading about him,” Myyah accuses. She leans her back against Anna’s desk, elbows holding most of her weight, expression caught somewhere between exasperated and loving. Her shirt’s unbuttoned just enough it would be distracting if only Anna were paying any attention.

Anna blushes at the accusation. “I do not,” she says, though she does. “It’s just—weird. Most important man in history, and half the time they don’t even get his name right.” She scowls, offended on his behalf, even though she’s never met the man. ( _Though sometimes, it seems, her dreams say otherwise._ ) “Why would they need to hide anything about him? Did they really just hate him that much?”

Myyah sends a long, tired look at her girlfriend, then exhales. “You sure there aren’t more exciting things you could be doing with your time, Anna?”

“No,” Anna answers, without any hesitation. This is fun, to her, even if kind of infuriating.

Myyah sighs. Keeping eye contact with Anna, she very deliberately undoes another button of her shirt.

“ _Oh!_ ” Anna says, caught somewhere between feeling delighted and a little dense. Her eyes trail over Myyah’s exposed skin and then back up to her face, grinning slowly. “You know what, you’re right. Let me just, uh—” She looks to her book, and then to the articles she has open on her computer, partially thinking she should probably find an actual stopping point, except she’s thought about the softness of Myyah’s skin for precisely the amount of time it takes to completely derail every other train of thought she had, so like. All she actually does is mark her place in her book and set it on the desk.

“You’re so dumb,” Myyah says.

“It’s a good thing you think that’s cute,” Anna says, and makes herself useful by undoing the rest of those buttons when Myyah leans in to kiss her.

“Okay okay okay,” Anna says, Very Seriously, bouncing in her desk chair as she shifts her weight and folds her legs under her in the other direction. “Fuck Galea, marry Myyah, kill Klaus.”

“Hey—” Klaus begins, as Galea laughs, and Myyah nods in thought, smiling.

“Fuck Galea, marry Anna, kill Klaus,” Myyah echoes, and Klaus splutters.

“Now _come on—”_

“You two are _disgusting,_ ” Galea says, all laughs and fondness. Myyah laughs brightly, and Anna rolls her chair over closer to Myyah to kiss her short and sweet all while Klaus grumbles into his coffee.

“What’s your answer?” Myyah asks, and Galea hums dramatically, leaning back against Anna’s desk as she thinks.

“Fuck… Myyah _and_ Anna,” she begins.

“That’s against the rules,” Klaus protests.

“Marry no one—”

“ _Also_ against the rules—”

“Kill Klaus.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Anna laughs so hard her sides _ache,_ but Klaus—one foot resting on his knee, bouncing in his chair with his agitation and _glaring like that—_ is an incredible sight, and this whole thing is perfect. Klaus pointedly doesn’t look at any of them as he takes a long drag of his coffee, which just makes it all that much better. Myyah and Galea share grins, reveling in the beauty of their accidental coordination.

“Well, Klaus?” Myyah asks.

He sets his coffee down on the nearby filing cabinet with finality.

“Fuck Galea,” he opens.

“Oh, I see I’m popular,” she laughs.

“Marry Myyah—”

“Ew.”

“Platonically, of course, for tax benefits.”

“Better.”

“Kill Anna.”

Anna splutters in shock, even though she should have seen it coming. “I’m- I’m _sorry_??”

Klaus just shoots her a grin.

“Oh, it’ll be fine!” he says proudly. “After all, you’re reincarnating, remember?”

“None of us can prove that!!” Anna counters, laughing. They’ve joked, before, about why Anna has the déjà vu spells she has. Reincarnation is Klaus’ favorite go-to theory.

“Well why don’t we find out,” he says, and it’s the best way Anna’s life has been threatened, ever.

“Reincarnation is _bullshit_ ,” Galea argues, not for the first time.

“No no no, listen, _listen_ ,” Klaus says, still grinning. “If it’s reincarnation, that explains why she’s so obsessed with one Mister Kratos Aurion.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Anna whines.

“You are though,” Myyah counters, fondly.

“Shut up!!”

“Honestly it’s not the fact that I think reincarnation is wrong, I just think it’s _boring_ ,” Galea tells Klaus, arms folded over her chest. “ _Why_ go with reincarnation when it could be the walls between the multiverse breaking down—”

“Centered directly around Anna?” Klaus asks.

“Why not!”

Klaus considers it for a moment, then nods. “I suppose that’s fair.”

Anna starts to whine about how much she hates all of them (she does not), when suddenly she spots Jade, and forgets all about that.

“Oh, Jade!” she calls, shooting upright in her chair so she can better wave him down, as if he would head anywhere that wasn’t where the four of them are gathered around her desk. “Jade, Jade, come play a game with us.”

“Oh I’m terrified of his answer,” Galea says.

“That’s what will make it interesting,” Myyah says.

“What kind of game?” Jade asks as he finishes approaching, in a tone that can be best described as cautiously interested.

“FMK,” Anna says.

“Hm?”

“Fuck, Marry, Kill? We give you a list of three people and then you vote which you want to, you know.”

“I see.” Jade pushes his glasses up his nose. Anna has yet to figure out why he wears them, seeing as he’s a _blade_ and has _perfect_ eyesight, as all blades do, but maybe he just thinks they’re fashionable? “Well, what’s my list, then?”

“Uh… any of the four of us,” Klaus says. “I think if I try and narrow it down to just three, they’ll all vote to kill me again.”

Jade laughs, shortly, then taps a knuckle against his chin as he thinks it over.

“Fuck… literally none of you,” he declares.

“That’s fair,” Anna says.

“Thank goodness,” Myyah says.

“Marry Klaus, because someone has to.”

“I’m not sure if I should be happy, or offended that you decided to marry me merely out of pity—” Klaus protests, and Anna about chokes with the effort of trying to hold her laughter in her chest, because Jade’s smile has not dropped an inch and Klaus is _pouting,_ which is objectively hilarious, and—

“Kill Citan.”

Anna stops laughing.

Like, mood, she’d kill Citan too if presented the legal opportunity, but. She shares startled looks with her coworkers—who look not only as startled but as unsettled as she is by not just the notion but how _casually_ Jade said it—before turning back to Jade, who watches their horror with a laid-back, disinterested smile.

Anna isn’t sure she’s ever seen Jade do anything _other_ than smile, actually.

“Anyway,” Jade says. “Speaking of my dear driver, he’d like a progress report on the project. I wouldn’t hurry with it, seeing as it’s not like _he_ can be bothered to be punctual about any of his appointments. Still. Sometime today.”

Message delivered, Jade heads off, raising his hand in a wave as he goes.

( _Later, Anna will pull Galea aside._

_“That’s fucked up, right? Like? That’s fucked up.”_

_“Maybe he was just joking? You know Jade, it’s impossible to tell…”_

_“Yeah but, that didn’t feel like a ‘haha, yeah I’d kill my boss’ joke—I mean. That’s his_ driver _.”_

_“Well.”_

_“Blades don’t just joke about killing their drivers!!”_

_“They don’t,” Galea relents. “They really don’t.”_ )

Everyone holds their collective breaths in the test room, watching, rapt, as Klaus carefully installs his ether furnace in Poppi and prepares to fire the furnace up. Anna clutches Myyah’s hand, watching from a few paces away from the table where Poppi lays prone, eyes closed as if she is sleeping. An orange core crystal—Myyah’s work—sits in the slot Galea prepared for it in Poppi’s collarbone, glowing, though her ether lines are not yet alight with the pulse of ether flowing. ( _What determines ether color, Anna doesn’t know, because_ they _didn’t pick the color orange and it certainly doesn’t correspond to elemental alignment or anything._ ) Galea stands near Klaus, running her fingers through Poppi’s synthetic hair.

“Alright,” Klaus says, voice quiet. “Here we go.”

He flips the switch. Closes the access port. Takes a step back. Galea bends down to press a quick kiss to Poppi’s brow before she steps back as well, letting their Aegis—their _daughter_ —have the space to wake up.

Ether pulses, brilliant and orange, through artificial veins. There’s a stirring, a soft voice.

Poppi’s eyes scrunch up.

And then she opens them.

Anna’s pulse skyrockets. She tugs Myyah a little closer.

Poppi slowly, cautiously pushes herself upright, as if she is still trying to get her bearings. She almost overbalances, and Anna hears Galea mumble something about needing to adjust her actuators, but all Anna’s breath is stolen by the fact that their daughter is _alert,_ and _looking right at them._

“Oh,” she says, and her voice is small, bright, curious. “Hello.”

Needing to celebrate _somehow,_ Anna turns and wraps Myyah in a bone-crushing hug.

They’ve done it.

It’s not good enough for Citan.

“That thing isn’t an Aegis,” Citan says, with a casual kind of disdain.

“She has a name and the least you could do is _use it_ ,” Anna spits, as Myyah’s grip on her wrist tightens. That grip is the only reason she hasn’t launched herself across the meeting table to punch Citan’s face in a time or five.

“Fine,” Citan says. “If it will make you feel better. _Poppi_ is not what I asked for.”

“We’re aware,” Klaus argues, sharp. “But creating an Aegis isn’t exactly _easy,_ so we thought if we could just make something that could mimic an Aegis’ strength—”

“Not good enough,” Citan insists. “You’ll have to start over.”

“But—” Myyah protests.

“Alright,” Galea interjects, with more grace than any of the rest of them have right now. “We’ll go back to the drawing board.” She gets to her feet, and after she sends a glance at him, Klaus follows her. Straight-backed and silent, they slip past Citan and out the door. Citan watches with disinterest. Jade, standing behind Citan, nods at their passing.

Anna wants to do—something, she’s not sure what, she just knows that she’s _burning_ and this _isn’t fair_ and she thinks she’s only hated one man more than she hates Citan fucking Uzuki. Her heart is pounding and her head is spinning and it’s only Myyah’s hand on her wrist that gets her to leave. They walk in oppressive silence, Anna jittery and wanting to _just hurt something, already,_ but Myyah’s grip on her wrist is tight and there’s nothing to hurt except Myyah, so she lets Myyah lead her back towards the lab, vision blurred with anger and tears, until Myyah lets them stop in some hallway.

She lets go of Anna’s wrist and turns to her, reaching slowly up to tuck Anna’s hair behind her ears, to run soothing fingers over Anna’s face.

“I know,” Myyah says gentle. “I know, I’m furious, too. But…”

She can’t seem to find the words. Anna can barely open her eyes to focus on Myyah’s despair.

“I know it’s—nothing,” Anna bites out, around the anger in her throat. “I know it’s—I mean of course you don’t get it right the first try. And I’m not even _mad_ that he wants us to try again, I just— _you heard how he talked about her._ ”

“I know, I know,” Myyah says. She’s barely an inch shorter than Anna, but she still has to stand on her toes to press a kiss to Anna’s forehead. The kiss is trembling, lingers too long, and Myyah’s fingers shake until Anna reaches up to steady them in her own. “I know.”

“Here,” Poppi says, passing Anna a mug of coffee.

Anna blinks up at her daughter, surprised, then takes it with a shaky little laugh. “Thanks,” she says, and takes a sip because it’d be rude _not_ to. To her surprise, Poppi managed to get the balance between coffee and cream perfect? She looks up at Poppi with newfound awe and fondness— _someone_ had to have taught her this, and it’s fondness for _them_ that fills Anna to bursting.

Plus, she guesses Poppi just wanted to cheer her up, huh? Fuck. That’s so sweet?? Too sweet?? In hindsight, Anna’s not sure she was emotionally prepared to be a parent—certainly not to one who’s _already in her preteens,_ blades are so weird—but. Okay she wouldn’t trade this for anything.

“Really, thanks,” she tells Poppi again, already feeling a little better.

“You’re welcome!” Poppi tells her brightly, plopping down in Myyah’s empty chair and giggling gleefully as it spins a little with her weight. She doesn’t let it distract her from what she came here for, though, and continues—even as she spins a little back and forth—“I just didn’t want you to be… any more stressed out??”

Anna hesitates before she answers, taking another drink of her perfect coffee to buy herself some time. Not worrying her daughter while also not lying to her daughter’s face is a balance she’s still learning to walk. “…just a lot of work,” is what she tells Poppi, when she’s finished her drink. “And I suppose Citan breathing down my neck isn’t helping my mood at all, either. But—the coffee helps, really. I appreciate it.”

“That’s good,” Poppi says, and then tilts her head to the side. “But… Citan’s not here.” Anna blinks at her, and she continues: “So I don’t understand how he’s—”

“Oh!” Anna says, realizing what’s going on here. She laughs, a little. “No, no, it’s—it’s an expression. It means he’s judging every little thing I do.”

“Ohhhh,” Poppi says, and nods, like she’s just learned some kind of Profound Wisdom. It makes Anna laugh with fondness. She sets her coffee mug down on her desk, glancing idly at the calculations still displayed on her screen, calculations that she’s _supposed_ to be doing. …Well, they can wait. Poppi’s here, and Anna thinks her daughter is probably five times more important than her work.

“How… How are you doing?” Anna asks, carefully. “ _You_ aren’t… y’know…” Actually, asking a kid if they’re stressed seems weird? Maybe she shouldn’t…

Poppi seems to understand the question, though, and she’s still smiling.

“I’m okay,” she insists. “After all, I’m not the one who has to do all the work. And- And—” She bounces a little, with excitement. “I mean, if you guys have to make another blade, then, I’ll have a little sibling, right?”

Anna blinks, and then laughs, startled and fond all at once. She wonders if her moms felt this way, when she asked them about wanting a little sibling, all those years ago.

“I- Yeah, that’s true,” Anna says. “You will.”

“Do you think I could help name them?”

Anna doesn’t even hesitate.

“Yes. Absolutely. You get first pick.”

_“Aegis or not, that artificial blade is walking liability.”_

_“Imagine if Sylvarant were to get their hands on that technology.”_

_“Not that it would be any more under their control than it is ours.”_

_“I suppose this is what we get, asking four scientists with no military training to do a job, and then refusing to give them specifics. The blame rests on us as well as them.”_

_“If they had known the specifics, likely they would have refused the job.”_

_“Well it’s too late for that, now. Rumors have spread. We need an Aegis to show, or the public will get even more restless than they already are. And, lest we forget that Sylvarant likely already has an Aegis of their own in the making—we know they have Martel’s shards.”_

_“And what do we do with the artificial blade?”_

_“Didn’t you hear me? It’s a liability. If even a scrap of it remains…”_

_“Understood.”_

Her ether furnace has been turned off for maintenance, so Poppi sits, eyes closed and inert in a chair nestled into the corner of the test room. If she were awake, she might have turned to the door opening. If she were awake, she might have realized something was wrong.

“Well, Jade?” Citan asks, turning to his blade, as the door shuts behind the two of them.

Jade hesitates.

He has done a lot of horrible things, either because he wanted to, or because Citan asked.

But this?

This is one he cannot do.

He turns his head away from sleeping Aegis prototype and his driver, both.

Citan watches him a second longer, then sighs.

“Fine, I’ll do it myself,” he says, and he summons Jade’s spear.

( _For as thoroughly as the shock of her death writes itself against his ether, Jade might as well have been the one to kill her._ )

They’re all gathered in the communal kitchen area of the lab, waiting for Klaus to arrive so Jade can deliver whatever news he was sent here with. Jade stands motionless at the table in the center of the room, the door behind him. He hasn’t responded to any of Galea’s or Anna’s gentle ribbing, which might make Anna nervous if she wasn’t distracted by the way she’s draped around Myyah right now. Myyah was already sitting at one of the table’s chairs opposite Jade, and why should Anna pull up a chair of her own when she can just lean against the back of Myyah’s, rest her chin on Myyah’s shoulder, drape her arms around Myyah’s neck. Myyah leans into the touch, fingers tracing patterns over Anna’s skin in a delightfully distracting way that Anna _might just_ have to do something about when they’re done here. Galea, meanwhile, leans against the counter to Anna’s left, nursing a cup of coffee.

“Alright, I’m here,” Klaus says, sliding into the kitchen. He slips around Jade, but just stands to Anna’s right, not moving much further, fidgeting a little. “Have—None of you have seen Poppi, have you?”

“I,” Anna says, feeling much like Klaus just kicked her in the stomach.

“No…?” Myyah says, her fingers closing around Anna’s arms. “I didn’t realize she was missing.”

“You were the one who saw her last,” Galea accuses, a little sharp. “Don’t tell me you _lost_ her.”

“The ether furnace needed re-tuning, so I’d powered her down and removed it so I could fiddle with it, and I’d intended to reinstall it this morning, but—” Klaus glares at Galea, who looks about ready to throw hands. “She wasn’t where I left her! That is _not_ my fault—”

Galea opens her mouth.

“Ahem,” Jade interjects.

“Actually,” Anna says, before he can continue. “I think whatever it is Citan wants you to tell us can wait, if Poppi’s missing—”

“Unfortunately, I have the answer to your questions,” Jade cuts in, and Anna closes her mouth. Myyah clings to her a little tighter. “Know that I hold no pleasure cutting to the chase like this, but…” Instead of speaking further, Jade reaches out and places something on the table. There’s the soft _thunk_ of something heavy meeting the table’s wood, and then Jade pulls his hand away,

Revealing two distinct pieces of a core crystal that pulses faintly orange.

Anna’s heart catches in her mouth.

“No,” she stammers, vision swimming. “No no no no no,” and it is only the sound of Galea’s mug shattering as she drops it, only Myyah’s tight grip on her wrists, Myyah’s warm skin against hers, that keeps her grounded where she is and not—

_her son’s cold hand in hers, watching him bleed out she can’t even DO anything to heal him all she can do is cling as he fades away from her, all she can do is stare at numbers on a page and know that he is dead even though she did not get to see him die_

“—Who did this?” Myyah demands.

“It was the committee’s decision,” Jade says. He isn’t smiling.

“That’s—bullshit,” Galea stammers. She sends a look down at the broken mug at her feet, hisses a little at the spilled coffee, but only steps over it and towards the table, to Poppi’s broken core crystal. “That’s, why would they—”

“They didn’t even _consult us_!” Klaus spits, as makes his way to the table and slams his palms against it, inches between his fingers and Poppi’s core crystal, like he’s afraid to touch it, afraid to disturb her ghost.

“They deemed the technology too dangerous to leave functional,” Jade says.

“But she- she’s just— _she was just!!_ ” Anna stammers, unable to get the words out of her throat. A child, a child, _a child, she was just a child—!_

_why why why WHY does she keep outliving her children_

“Was it Citan?” Myyah asks, cold, and her voice anchors Anna again, even as she pushes Anna’s arms off of her so that she can sit up straighter, square her shoulders and sit tall as she glares Jade down.

“It was the committee’s decision.”

“ _Was it Citan,”_ Myyah repeats, then cocks her head. “Or was it you?”

“There is no need to shoot the messenger.”

“ _Jade._ ”

“It won’t make you feel any better, knowing.”

Klaus slumps where he stands, running his hand over his face. “And what are we supposed to do now?” he asks, bitter. “Keep going? Make them another artificial Aegis that they’ll just kill? I understand that sometimes progress requires sacrifice, but _this_ —”

“This isn’t sacrifice, it’s slaughter,” Galea insists. “And I won’t stand for it.”

“Unfortunately,” Jade begins.

“What?” Anna demands, clinging to the back of Myyah’s chair to keep herself upright. Her head is spinning, drums beating an angry song against her skull. “They won’t let us quit?” She scoffs. “Literally _what’s_ keeping me from walking out the door right now, huh? _What’s_ keeping me from walking?”

She pushes herself off of Myyah’s chair and starts moving. The kitchen isn’t that far from the front doors of the lab, so Anna makes her way there, feeling her coworker’s eyes on her like needles in her veins. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t fucking matter. _None of this fucking matters_ —

“I wouldn’t bother,” Jade calls after her.

Anna scoffs and rounds on him. “And why not? And why _fucking_ not?” Her hand finds the handle, and she yanks the door open and towards her, always having a fondness for timing as dramatic as she can possibly make it. “Door’s open! I can just _fucking go_ —”

Someone clears their throat.

Anna turns away from Jade to the door, then backpedals when she comes face to face with three Tethe’allan guards, all decked out in full military gear.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Anna says.

One of the guards grins and cocks her head to the side. “Ever hear of house arrest?”

“You can’t just—” Anna splutters, her chest tight, _fury fury fury_ a warsong in her bones. “ _Who_ fucking authorized—”

“The committee did,” comes Jade’s voice, steady, from behind her. “They fear your knowledge getting to Sylvarant.”

Anna staggers a step back, _horror horror horror_ gripping her like chains around her wrists.

“And—let me guess,” Klaus says, with a bitter, manic little laugh. “They want their Aegis too badly to let us go, anyway. At least, not until we’ve produced something that they like.”

“That’s on the nose, I’m afraid,” Jade agrees.

“And if we refuse to work?” Myyah asks.

“Then you’re more use to them dead.”

The two broken pieces of Poppi’s core crystal lay dormant on the lab’s table.

Anna tries not to look at them.

Tries not to look at them.

( _But, unfortunately for her, this is a dream._

 _This is a dream, and it will not allow her to look anywhere else_.)

Footsteps in a dark room.

A shadow, moving.

It would startle her if she did not know that shadow, did not know that shape better than any other. The silhouette of a man gives way to a faint red glow, his features illuminated by his core crystal. And—she does not _know_ him, does not _remember_ him, but her soul could never, ever, forget his face. Red eyes peek out beneath red hair, mouth pinched into a thin line above a square jaw. Never has she seen those eyes this angry.

“Don’t,” she says, but he’s already picked up one half of Poppi’s broken crystal.

“I don’t even have words for how disgusted I am,” he says, quiet, his voice a melody that her heart aches for even as she hears it shape with _disappointment._ That disappointment cuts deeper than anger possibly could have. She reaches towards him but cannot touch, can never touch.

He continues his accusation, with the bone-tired kind of fury that comes from knowing something will _never_ change. “You create an Aegis, and when she isn’t good enough for you, you kill her—”

“I didn’t!” Anna screams. “ _I didn’t kill her!_ ”

He looks up at her, and those red eyes strip her of skin, lay her heart bare.

“You created her.”

She takes a step back.

“You created her,” he repeats, and the coldness of his voice sharpens with his rage. “You created a child, a child that you _knew_ was going to be turned into a weapon, had only those you created her for not chosen to be picky—!”

His fingers tighten around the shard he holds. Anna wants to tell him to _put her child down,_ but how does she have any right?

“No,” she says, she insists. “I wouldn’t have—”

“And here you are, creating more of them, more than ready to sign them off to be used and tortured and…” He breaks off with anger, shaking his head, lips curled with his fury.

“Kratos—”

( _She does not know that name, will not remember it when she wakes up, but her lips form around the shape of it anyway._ )

“Humans disgust me.”

He puts the shard back down on the table. Suddenly there is not a table. There is just him, and her, and the darkness around them.

“Kratos, _please_ —”

Every time she has said those two words in a dream before, he has been sad and tired, a man about to do something that will kill him but he has no choice _but_ to do. Or—or sometimes, he is scared, and skittish, scrambling to put distance between the two of them.

He is neither tired nor skittish, now.

He takes a step forward. He’s close enough to touch but even though Anna reaches, her fingers will not brush his skin.

“And why should I trust you?” he asks.

“Because—”

“Why should I _forgive_ you and your kind for the things you have done? To the Aegises. To blades. To _me_.”

She cannot touch him, but the sword he draws presses warm against her throat just fine.

“Please,” she begs.

He pulls his sword back and swings—

—and Anna wakes up screaming.

Myyah startles awake beside her, blinking through sleep and the dark to send a concerned look at her girlfriend, all as Anna grapples for coherency. She finds it after a throbbing moment, clutching herself tight and tucking her chin to her chest, shaking with the tears that stream down her cheeks. If she were a little less coherent, if she were a little more scared, she might hate the fact that she _does not really recognize the room she woke up in,_ except she’s spent enough nights in the lab’s bedrooms that she _does_ recognize it just enough, _and that’s not the point here, anyway._

“Anna?” Myyah asks, tentatively. “Anna, are you alright?”

_(she can feel the way that sword cuts through her skin_

_why does her flesh know the taste of it so well?)_

“It’s just—” Anna gasps, and it’s all so much and more than she can put into words for Myyah, never mind the fact that it’s rapidly slipping through her fingers so she can barely remember it anyway. Words tear themselves out of her throat nonetheless, despair so thick it cannot be held in and Anna has never been the kind of girl who screams wordless when she can spin rage out of speech instead. “She’s dead, she’s dead, _she’s dead_.”

“Anna—”

“She’s dead, and he will- _he will_ —!”

_Will never remember you, will never trust you again_

_And why should he trust you?_

**Humanity is horrible.**

**Just look at how quickly they decided to kill your daughter the moment it wasn’t what they wanted.**

_Blades are tools_

_Meant to be discarded when they become useless_

_Worthless_

_Only as good as the results they bring_

an endless string of test subjects in a line of horrible experiments and it doesn’t matter, that they’re hurting, that they’re dying, because they are blades and blade lives matter less, have always mattered less than human lives ever had—

_Does all of humanity think that?_

_Does_ you _think that?_

_Of course not._

**But he has every right not to trust you for the crimes of your people.**

_“And why should I trust you?”_

_“And why should I trust you?”_

**_“And why should I trust_ you _?”_**

“Anna?”

Myyah presses concerned fingers to her bare shoulder. Anna flinches away from the contact. Myyah’s hands are too cold, and they aren’t the touch she wants to feel, anyway, because Myyah’s hands aren’t _his._ Even though… it’s wrong to want for him, isn’t it? It’s wrong, because he isn’t real, he’s just a memory, and she will never ever taste the warmth of his skin again.

_And why should he allow her a taste?_

_Why should he **trust** her with that?_

“What are you talking about?” Myyah presses. “ _Who_ won’t…?”

“No one, nothing,” Anna spits, and swings her legs over the side of the bed and pushes herself to her feet. “I’m—Fine. I’m fine, I’m fine. I’m just gonna go get some water.”

Instead she heads to the bathroom down the hall and promptly deposits everything that’s still in her stomach into the toilet.

“Ahem.”

Anna about leaps out of her skin at the sound. She rounds on her would-be assailant, heart jumping like a caged rabbit in her chest, hands fumbling for literally anything on her desk that would make a decent improvised weapon. Coffee mug would do. It’s incredible what blunt-force trauma does to someone, and she could throw it while running, it doesn’t _have_ to hurt, a distraction while she gets away is good enough—

Anna freezes, on her feet and coffee mug still raised to throw.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Jade says, patiently, his hands raised in a gesture of peace. It doesn’t take Anna much longer than a few seconds for her brain to connect, to remember where she _really_ is, and shame fills her the same way adrenaline does, which makes a frankly disgusting cocktail in her veins.

“ _Goddess_ ,” she swears, and falls back into her chair, slamming her mug back down on the desk. She’s lucky it’s empty, or her notes would be ruined by dislodged coffee. “Don’t _scare_ me like that!”

Jade blinks at her, looking bemused. “Goddess?” he asks.

“What?”

“I didn’t realize you’d converted to a new religion overnight,” Jade says, pushing his glasses up his nose in the way he only does when he’s being Smug As Hell, a little smirk playing on his lips. “And so thoroughly that you’re already swearing in the name of a goddess no one here’s heard of…”

Anna squints, desperately. “The— _fuck_ are you talking about?” she demands.

“Did you not just say ‘goddess’ just now?”

“Did I?”

“You don’t remember.”

“I don’t even remember what I had for breakfast this morning.”

“Interesting.”

Anna fumes. She has half a mind to punch and/or kiss that smirk off his face—wait, what. No. Ew? She flushes, trying to pin that thought down but unable to get anything more coherent than staring at Jade’s red eyes for a second longer than normal, and then the shame takes her again and she slams her palm against the edge of her desk to distract herself and maybe get her thoughts in order, _Architect_ does she hate how scattered she is.

“Stop making fun of me,” she hisses. “It’s—I’m _already_ on edge!”

Of course she is. She’s being kept in a cage—fancy or comfortable or otherwise, a cage is still a cage—and she’s not sure how _any_ woman is meant to stay sane under these circumstances.

“You’re right, I’m sorry,” Jade says, and he sounds like he means it. That’s something. “If now is a bad time, I can leave you be.”

“No no, now’s fine!” Anna insists, hastily, because just because she feels about ready to claw her own skin off doesn’t mean she abhors the thought of company so much she’s going to send Jade away. Honestly his company is leagues better than silence. She picks her coffee mug back up before she remembers it’s empty, squints at it but keeps holding it. Maybe she’ll get more coffee once Jade’s gone, and if she’s holding the mug she won’t forget to do that. “I know Citan doesn’t let you come around here much anymore. What do you need?”

Jade takes a second, fixing his posture, folding his hands behind his back. He is still smiling.

“I was just wondering if you happened to know where I could get my hands on any flesh eater research.”

“Nope, I burned it all. Sorry.”

She isn’t sorry. She grips her coffee mug tighter.

“What?” Jade asks, caught by surprise.

“Hm?”

“You’re telling me you managed to burn _all_ of the research that has _ever_ existed about flesh eaters?” His tone is like a knife sliding out of its sheath—not sharp, exactly, but full of the promise of sharpness underneath the humor. “That seems quite the job for just one woman.”

“Yeah, well, it had to be done.”

Jade’s eyebrows quirk upwards. “Did it, now?”

“Yeah, it did.”

_don’t think about it don’t think about it don’t think about the research itself, don’t think about the horrors written across pages upon pages of burning papers, don’t think about the purpose and the pain it caused, don’t think about why you wanted it done, don’t think about whose sake you burned it for, don’t think about it, don’t THINK about—_

The handle of her coffee mug snaps off in Anna’s hand.

The snap of it resounds against her fingers, hits her pulse and yanks her to the present. She jolts away from it, blinking down in surprise. Okay… what the fuck? That was her favorite mug, too. How had she just— _why_ had she just—

“Well that’s fantastic!” she hisses, furious. She slams mug part back onto her desk, turns the handle over for a second as she examines it, then tosses it amongst all her loose papers. “ _Architect,_ what is _with_ me today!”

“It’s really all gone?” Jade asks, leaning towards her.

Anna looks up at him, head turning in her confusion. “What is?” she asks. Fuck, shit, how long’s he been standing there? What’s _she_ been doing? “Sorry, what was- what was it you needed, again?” she asks, and sets aside her shitty memory and dissociation spells to worry about Later.

Jade stares at her for a long moment, then heaves a deep sigh.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “I know enough.”

“About?? What??”

But Jade is already nodding to her as he starts off, smiling again. “I’ll see if I can find you a new mug, Anna.”

“Uh, thanks,” Anna says, and grumbling, turns back to her work, even though it’s the last thing she wants to do.

( _But what choice does she have? What choice do any of them have?_ )

Obviously, none of them take the house arrest thing well at all.

Kept against their will? In a space that wasn’t exactly meant to be lived in? Forced to work on a project they’ve grown to hate, because if they don’t work they’ll never see freedom again, if they don’t they’re as good as dead? It’s a recipe for disaster, and it only gets harder to bear as time goes on.

Anna handles it worse than the others.

There’s something about confinement that drives her insane. She can’t really put a finger on it—not a conscious finger, anyway, not to the root of the problem—all she can do is complain about the lack of fresh air and how the lab has no windows and how she’d just like to at least see the _sun_ again. The lab’s artificial lights are too harsh when she has to live constantly under them, and the absence of them at night making the lab feel too empty and too full all at once, devoid of proper life but full of _something_ just lurking around the corner, waiting to bite. She hates it. She hates living like someone’s going to jump out at her at any second.

But she can’t help it. Somewhere in the deepest part of her she’s _certain,_ quite certain, that she’s walking the edge of a knife, every trip away from her desk to another familiar location like a roll of the dice, is _this_ the time she breaks down in the hallway because it looks too similar to- to—she isn’t sure what and she doesn’t want to think about it but she has lost count of the times one of her coworkers has found her nestled up against the wall like a feral thing, crying and frightened and furious. What is _wrong_ with her?

Her ability to focus plummets. Loud noises, shouting, even laughter if it’s a touch too sharp will send her spiraling. Someone touching her when she wasn’t expecting it is a nightmare, as is getting sneaked up on. She knows that they are all glorified caged animals, right now, but she wishes she wasn’t the only one acting like a _literal animal._

(Her work quality plummets, too.)

“I just don’t see the fucking _point,_ ” Anna whines to Myyah, slamming her head into her keyboard, just to show that she is at the absolute epitome of Giving Up, right now. “I can’t fucking _concentrate,_ and why should I _want to_? Why should I want to create weapons for _monsters_!?”

Myyah doesn’t answer, clearly uncomfortable, not having an answer.

Anna takes it as a cue to continue, anyway. “Oh, that’s right!” she spits, bitter. “Because they’ll fucking _kill_ me, if I don’t!”

“I highly doubt they’re serious about killing us, Anna,” Myyah says gently, always the optimist to the point of deluding herself. Things aren’t going your way? Just pretend they still are and ignore the blatant signs otherwise, that’s Myyah!!

( _Okay, okay, Anna, be a little kinder. You all need ways to fucking cope in this hellhole that you’re living in right now._ )

“So you really think they’ll just let me go?” Anna laughs, picking her head up so she can shoot a deranged kind of smile at Myyah. (This… _is_ kinder than mocking Myyah’s coping habits aloud, at least.) “You really think I can just walk up to Citan and be like yeah sure I changed my mind—of course I can’t! They still don’t want me going to Sylvarant so even if they don’t kill me they’ll just throw me in a cage of a _different_ sort.”

“A fancy house on the countryside, maybe,” Myyah suggests with a grim kind of hope. “Being outside might not be the same with three armed guards tailing you at all times, but it has to beat the lab.”

Anna glares, even though she admits it would be a considerable step up. “I’m just tired of living in fucking _cages_ ,” she spits.

Myyah blinks, recoils a little. “Sorry, that was—I probably shouldn’t joke about that, should I? It’s—”

“It’s fine.”

“I’m sorry, Anna.”

“It’s _fine_.”

She wishes she knew why she hated the concept of being confined so much, wishes she knew why it felt like some deep, arcane fear lurking in the depths of her soul. She’s curious to a fault, maybe, and it’s not like work’s a thing she wants to be doing and it’ll be at least five minutes before the awkward air dissipates between her and Myyah after she snapped like that, so Anna starts rooting through the basement of her soul, seeing if she can just _touch_ the sleeping dragon, not needing to wake it.

Eyes unfocused, sensations come back to her. Chains on her wrists. Brands seared into her skin. The clanging of armor the sharp voices of cruel men jeering things like _pigs_ and _dogs_ and _inferior being_ when _bitch_ allowed too much personal identity for their tastes. The ache of abuse beaten into her bones. The experiments experiments experiments experiments experiments experiments experiments experiments experiments

**_Burning_ **

In her throat

_she wants it gone she wants it gone she wants it gone she wants it gone_

“Anna, _Anna_ —!"

A voice, panicked, hands on her wrists, holding her tight holding her so she cannot move cannot _fight back._ She snarls and tries to kick—satisfaction sliding down her burning throat when she earns a pained yelp for it and then—

“Anna, _please._ It’s—Myyah. Your girlfriend. We’ve been dating for three years? That’s not quite the amount of time we’ve been working on the Artificial Aegis Project, which I know you hate, and I know you hate Citan and everyone else running it.” It’s coming back to her, now, vision clearing and shame and _anger_ filling her bones as she processes Myyah’s face, Myyah’s trembling voice and eyes wide with horror as she keeps talking. “You also hate your coffee black and- and—Your mothers’ names are Elise and Monica, and you have a little sister named—”

“I’m here,” Anna interrupts.

“What?”

“I’m here,” Anna insists. She yanks her hands away from Myyah—or, she _tries_ to. Myyah’s grip is like iron, even though she’s shaking. “ _Myyah,_ ” she says, scowling.

“It’s just,” Myyah begins, swallows. “Anna…” she says, very slowly, like she’s about to deliver terrible news, then she seems to think better of it and says instead: “I just don’t want you to hurt yourself any more.”

Anna squints, then abruptly becomes aware of how much her throat hurts, and the gunky feeling of blood under her fingernails.

She yanks her hands away from Myyah again and manages this time. She touches fingers to her throat, right where it hurts, right between the two bumps of her collarbone. The pressure _stings,_ but it doesn’t feel like there’s a _lot_ of blood, at least. Superficial scratches, pain already ebbing as seconds tick by.

What the fuck, though.

“Anna…?” Myyah asks, head tilted with concern. “What… why were you…”

Anna closes her mouth and refuses to answer. She doesn’t know, and she thinks she shouldn’t think about it. Myyah eventually gives up asking to instead focus on dragging Anna to the kitchen and the first aid supplies to get cleaned up. Anna lets her, and doesn’t speak.

Don’t think about it, Anna. Don’t think about it.

They finally succeed.

Ramsus doesn’t last long, but at this point, all the tweaking that needs to be done to the formula that created him can be done by Myyah alone.

Klaus and Galea are moved to another department.

There’s an attempt on Anna’s life.

Or, there’s _supposed_ to be an attempt on Anna’s life.

( _“Can I trust you with this?” Citan asks._

_“Of course,” Jade replies, smiling the whole time._

_He knows it’s a test. He doesn’t care if he fails._

_Besides._

_Citan will never know._ )

What actually happens is that while Anna’s supposed to be packing to move to a new department of her own ( _Myyah has already been moved to another lab with better living accommodations, since she’s the only scientist they care about anymore_ ), Jade finds her. There is no other department for Anna to move to, of course. She was only told this, and then shuffled out of official documents. No one will be looking for her, because everyone planned for her to die.

( _Citan made Jade’s job very easy._

 _He couldn’t be more thankful._ )

Jade knocks on the open door, because simply clearing his throat is more likely to make Anna jump out of her skin, for whatever reason. She still jumps, regardless, sends him a glare—but she looks fully lucid, fully here.

“What do you want?” Anna spits, angry. “Come to say goodbye to me, too? Got some kind of stupid message from your _shitty fucking driver._ ” She throws something into a box at random. She doesn’t seem to care that it breaks. “I’m _never_ going to see Myyah again, you know? Just like that, and she’s gone, and we— _ugh!_ ” She scrubs at her eyes. “I hate this stupid fucking country, I hope it burns itself to the ground. Least it deserves for robbing me of everything I love just to put me in another _fucking cage._ ”

Jade says nothing, letting her rant. He might as well.

( _The fact that she will never see Myyah or anyone else she loves again hasn’t changed, after all._

 _Freedom does not mean going back to how things were._ )

“Well?” Anna demands, rounding on him. “What _do_ you want, you asshole?”

Despite all her anger, there’s fondness in the insult, and Jade knows this.

Still. Who is he if he doesn’t tease?

“Come now, Anna, that’s no way to talk to your knight in shining armor.”

“Ha! You’re no knight, and that armor isn’t shining—” Then she pauses, and she _really_ looks at him, like she hopes to squint an answer out of his face even though it’s a futile effort. “What… do you mean, though?”

“How’d you like to get out of here?”

“Out of here?” Anna repeats. “Like, _out of here,_ out of here? Like, _freedom_?” When Jade nods to confirm, she breaks into a cautious grin of delight. “I’d fucking _love_ it, duh? Are you serious? _Architect,_ you are, holy shit. I could kiss you!”

“Please don’t.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Anna laughs, and it’s the brightest he’s heard her laugh in years. Between laughs her mood shifts, though, skepticism yanks her back from the edge of delight. “How are you doing this without Citan finding out?” she asks, eyeing Jade.

Jade could give her the full plan, but he’d really rather not unless she actually desperately needs that cushion of knowledge to trust him. He doesn’t think she’ll need it. Freedom sings a siren song much louder in her veins than even worry for him will. So what he tells her is: “Well, it’s not like anyone’s expecting to see you tomorrow.”

It takes her a second to get it, but only a second.

“Citan sent you to kill me.”

“For all that you joke about being dumb, you really aren’t.”

Anna watches Jade like she expects him to move at any second, muscles coiled like the warrior Jade knows she is not.

( _Maybe she was, though, at some point._

_None of them ever could concretely rule reincarnation out._

_In fact, Jade has almost enough evidence to prove the theory true._ )

Jade hasn’t moved from his position in the doorway, though. He thinks about putting up his hands in a gesture of peace, reassuring her otherwise, but he doesn’t get to it. Anna slumps, laughs all bitter, leans her hip against her desk and crosses her arms.

“Well, I mean, if that’s you’re here for—”

“It’s _not_ what I’m here for,” Jade insists, hastily, control of his composure slipping at not just the suggestion he’d actually kill one of the few friends he’s ever had but also how Anna seems perfectly content with this turn of events. Not thrilled, exactly, but wholly uncaring.

( _Death is better than a cage, isn’t it?_ )

Arms still crossed over her chest, Anna raises her eyebrows at her would-be rescuer. “You really think you can get me out without Citan finding out about it? I don’t want him…” She hesitates, the words too big for her mouth. “…hurting you.”

 _Or worse_ goes unspoken, and it makes Jade fond.

Composure reacquired, he tells her plainly: “No one will look for a body, because Citan trusts me to get the job done and leave no evidence. In twenty-four hours, they’ll release the news that you died of some natural causes, because obviously it can’t _look_ like murder, and without a finished Aegis they don’t have the political cushion to claim Sylvarant sent an assassin. So long as we don’t run into any trouble getting out—” ( _And they won’t, he made sure of that,_ ) “—and you don’t make a fuss once you’re away from here, no one will ever know.”

“Well, it’s not like I was going to see Myyah again anyway,” Anna sighs. She nods slowly to herself. “Dead to the world, but otherwise free? Sounds kind of nice…”

“We probably shouldn’t linger much longer,” Jade begins.

“Yeah, yeah,” Anna says, then hums, thoughtful, hopeful. She pushes off from her desk and takes a step towards Jade. “You know… since we both know Citan is kind of just. Awful.”

She waits for Jade to laugh. He doesn’t.

Anna presses on: “I mean I was just thinking… if I’m getting out of here… you could always… come with?” The way her voice brims with hope is endearing. “I could drive you instead, and then he definitely couldn’t hurt you—”

Jade could tell her that requires him dying. He could tell her that he’d prefer to keep his memories. He could tell her that, more than anything, he doesn’t want to forget. Not at all, not again, but especially not the memories he has of her and the rest of their coworkers, even if he does have to keep memories of Citan along with those memories.

( _Besides, why choose death when you hold the keys to freedom?_ )

What he tells Anna instead is:

“If Citan does not see me tonight, there’s no way anyone will buy that you’re dead. And then they might just put you in another cage—jailed for theft and murder gets you out of their hair as well as killing you does.” He is intentionally sharp, when he says it, and he pays no mind to her flinch.

She opens her mouth like she wants to argue anyway, but.

Clearly she values freedom more than she values him.

That’s fine, that’s how Jade would prefer it.

“Should we get going, then?” he asks. When she glares, he laughs. “If you’re trying to kill me just by glaring at me, then I’ll have to inform you that it’s rather ineffective, unfortunately. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

Anna glares harder—more like pouts, this time—and huffs.

“I’m not—” she protests. Glares some more. “Fine, fine,” she says. “Let’s go.”

( _He gets her out with no issues._

 _As far as he is aware, Citan has no idea that Anna lives._ )

Galea sighs as she shuts down her computer for the night; a deeply weary, life-exhausted kind of sigh that Klaus has grown used to, knowing its taste on his own tongue.

“This is… really going to be the rest of our lives, isn’t it?” she says, soft, into the silence left by the absence of her computer’s hum.

“Suppose so,” Klaus agrees. He doesn’t exactly see a way out of it.

Galea slumps in her chair. “Three of four children, all handed over to be more military blades in an endless line of them.” She shakes her head. Klaus would almost expect her to be crying, right now, if he knew her to be the kind of woman who cried.

Then again, maybe they’ve all just run out of tears to cry, and similarly run out of fire to be angry with.

They’re all too exhausted for that.

Klaus considers the fourth child in question, a core crystal sitting on his desk that looks just like any other core crystal. No one could tell it was artificial at a glance. That’s the whole point.

“Not sure we can even keep this one away from them…” Klaus adds, with a sigh that echoes the one Galea heaved earlier.

He wishes he could be angry. All he can do is be resigned.

Not wanting to leave it out overnight, Klaus picks the crystal up off his desk to pocket it.

He doesn’t quite get that far.

Ether sings through his veins, weighing him, judging him, deciding him fit in milliseconds and latching on, digging the anchoring hooks of resonance into his veins as pale blue light fills the room and then dissipates. When the light clears, a blade stands. A young man with brown skin and silver hair just like Galea, dressed in a dark blue jacket and white pants.

“Hello. My name is Alvis,” he introduces himself, with a partial mock-bow and a smile. “Though I suppose you already knew that.” The smile—a partial smirk, really, which Klaus blames the blade’s mother for—reaches his eyes, filling them with the glint of knowledge that makes Klaus feel a little unsettled. The emotion bleed is clear and calm.

Klaus sends a nervous look over at his—at Galea. She beams at their son, though, putting down her things so she can cross the room and hug him. Alvis laughs and lets her, returning the hug, and Klaus fidgets with the sleeves of his coat as he watches. This is the first of four children that they actually get to see awake. This is the first of four—the only of four—that they get to speak to.

And he is probably, definitely, going to get in trouble for this, even though it _wasn’t his fault_.

“Mother, alright,” Alvis says after a moment, fond but exasperated, gently pushing Galea off of him. “There will be time later. For right now, we should be going.”

“Going? Where?” Klaus asks, squinting at his son.

“Freedom, of course,” Alvis says.

“What…” Galea begins.

“How did you…?” Klaus presses.

Alvis smiles. “A blade who can keep their memories, remember?” he explains, gentle. “You would be surprised what one can overhear in the dreamspace before awakening. Now, come. There isn’t much time.”

Klaus turns away, nervously considering his research, his belongings—some half-packed, because he and Galea have talked as seriously as two can about escaping when neither are quite certain it is possible. He wonders what’s worth grabbing, if any of it matters, if he has time to haphazardly gather the rest or not. It doesn’t feel—real, even as Alvis’ urgency sings under his skin through the emotion bleed. Escaping? After all these years? Maybe this some kind of dream.

“Father,” Alvis says, the gentleness becoming stern with impatience. “Come.”

“Hold on, Alvis,” Galea interjects. “How do you know how much time we have? How do you even know how to get out? I mean, sure, Klaus and I both know where the front doors are, but there are guards, and surely someone will notice us leaving—”

“Your friend Jade, has taken care of that for us.”

That brings Klaus’ eyes back to Alvis, surprise washing over him. “And… how do you know _that_?” Klaus asks. “Did you speak with him?”

It doesn’t make sense at all, really—as far as Klaus is aware, this is the first time Alvis has been awake—but it’s the only thing that makes even a little sense, and Klaus supposes if they were successful in their endeavors and Alvis keeps his memories between lifetimes, then…

“I can see his movements,” Alvis answers, derailing Klaus’ train of thought. Alvis’ gaze is distant, foggy. Ether burns around him, the wind in the room stirs. “As well as which ones would be most prudent for us to take, should we wish a for a kind future.”

Galea studies their son carefully. “Is this some kind of…?

“Foresight,” Alvis says. “The ability to see the future.” He smiles at their surprise and disbelief. “You may not believe me now, but you will when we meet Jade, and he is caught off guard by our impeccable timing, seeing as he clued neither of you in on his plan.”

Klaus exchanges a glance with Galea. What is there to do, other than believe Alvis? Still… With that glance he asks if _she_ gave Alvis this ability, but her mirrored glance with the same question implies that no she did not. Neither of them did.

But then, what parents ever really do have complete say in their child’s talents and abilities? They can nudge, provide opportunities for growth, but not much more—and blades are unconventional children, besides.

“ _Come_ ,” Alvis repeats, more urgently. “If we wait much longer, we will not make it out at all, and that is a future I am not looking forward to.”

He strides with purpose towards the door, and Galea follows a second after him. Klaus sends one last look at his desk, but grabs nothing before he follows. He has his life. He has Galea. He has one of his children. That’s enough.

Except.

“The others,” Klaus says, pausing in the doorway. Galea stops to look at him, and Alvis does a moment later, halfway down the hall and hand on his hip. “Your _siblings_ ,” Klaus elaborates, eyes locked with Alvis. “We can’t just—”

Galea nods. “If we’re going to make it out, we should take them too,” she insists.

Alvis laughs, lightly. Shakes his head. “It will be of no use,” he informs his parents. “The lengths we would need to go through to find and retrieve them would waste all the time we have for escape. Besides, the path Malos is currently on must not be interrupted.” At his parents’ hesitation, he adds. “Rest assured, they will all find good drivers away from the Tethe’allan military within only a few lifetimes. Now, keep walking. Jade is just around the corner.”

Alvis begins walking, and so too do his parents.

Klaus isn’t sure if he’s surprised or not when Jade actually _is_ around the corner. He supposes that means Alvis wasn’t lying about his knowledge, but even that is much more than Klaus is certain he’s capable of properly taking in, right now. There’s not much space in his mind for it, anyway, since he also has to take in the sight of Jade standing over two guards—dead, or unconscious, Klaus cannot tell and doesn’t quite want to find out—his spear still glistening and his expression surprised up until it becomes amused.

“My, getting a little ahead of ourselves, aren’t we?” Jade asks. “I understand if you are eager to see yourselves out of here, but what if I hadn’t been here, hm? Would you have disposed of the guards yourselves, or had your blade do it for you?”

His eyes flicker to Alvis. Alvis chuckles, hands raised in a gesture of peace.

“I knew you were coming,” Alvis explains. “So I hurried them along. Our time window is shorter than you anticipated it being.”

“Really now?”

“Well, unless you intend to tell me that you calculated for how much attention a blade who no one has seen before draws…”

“Fair enough,” Jade relents, as he straightens, feet together and back straight, though he does not dismiss his spear, leaving it lazily held in one hand. Given how much the ambient ether spikes when a blade’s weapon is summoned or dismissed, Klaus knows Jade’s choice to be wholly logical. “But that doesn’t explain how you knew I was on the way—I was very careful not to make much noise, and to not be too flashy.”

Alvis moves a few steps towards Jade, hands on his hips and smile gentle. “Can you keep a secret?” he asks.

“You ask as if you already know the answer.”

“By some means or another, I have been gifted with knowledge of the future,” Alvis explains, voice light and hushed. “Believe me or don’t—but Jade. Know that your time is coming sooner than you expect.”

Jade does not move, does not break eye-contact with Alvis, but Klaus swears he sees Jade’s fingers tighten around his spear.

“Do not worry,” Alvis assures Jade. “The outcome is the same whether you are anticipating it or not. You are already as prepared as you need to be.”

“What are you talking about?” Galea asks, looking between the two blades.

Jade blinks, turns to her with a smile. “Frankly, I have no idea,” he says. “But—” Here, he turns back to Alvis. “If you really do know the future, I suppose that means you’ll need no escort out.”

“It’s not like I know everything,” Alvis argues, but he’s laughing. “In this case you are right, however. The path to the west exit is clear, correct?”

“Thanks to yours truly,” Jade answers.

“Then I’ll take it from here,” Alvis says. “One more thing, though, Jade?”

“Alvis,” Klaus hisses. “Aren’t we in a hurry?”

“There is time for this. Jade?”

Jade sighs and pushes hair out of his face with his free hand, though he does not look bothered. Then again, Klaus has very rarely seen Jade without that amused little smile plastered on his lips. “Somehow, I get the feeling you aren’t going to let me say no,” Jade says. “So go on, then.”

“When you see Anna again,” Alvis says, and Klaus and Galea share startled looks that he ignores. Anna? _Alive?_ “Tell her that she will not have to wait much longer.”

Jade blinks. “For what?”

“She’ll know,” Alvis says. And then he hums, head bowed for a moment as he reconsiders. “Actually, I suppose she might not.” Slowly he shrugs, like it doesn’t matter much. “Either way, the universe is about to breathe a sigh of relief, and I for one will be breathing along with it.”

“…I see,” Jade says, though it sounds like he’s as lost as Klaus is as to what exactly Alvis is talking about.

“Anyway.” Alvis raises his hand in a wave goodbye at Jade, then nods towards a corridor that Klaus would not have thought to take. “Let’s go. Time is short.”

“Thank you, Jade,” Galea says, before they follow.

“Please don’t get yourselves killed now, you’re both much too smart for that,” Jade tells them.

“Same to you,” Klaus echoes.

It’s the last they see of him.

When Alvis had said that Jade’s time was coming sooner than he expected, Jade had certainly not anticipated that to mean within the next fifteen minutes.

He’s making his way back to his personal quarters when Citan finds him. Jade feels the resonance link sing with his driver’s proximity before anything else, and, chest tight, he turns to the clicking sound of Citan’s boots against the floor. Jade digs his fingers into his arms behind his back, gripping them and with them all semblance he has of serenity.

“Honestly, Jade, I’m disappointed,” Citan says, in the exact kind of tone someone might use to scold a dog for pissing on the couch again. “Did you _really_ think I wouldn’t notice? Leaking information, blatant disrespect for my orders, killing security guards… You’ve done this all before, Jade.” He pauses, laughs to himself. “Not that you’d remember.”

Jade bites his tongue. Breathes through his nose. Trembles with his anger.

Smiles.

“Oh I wouldn’t, would I?” he asks, tone painted with surprise and innocence, as if he had absolutely no idea this was going on.

“No,” Citan says, “you wouldn’t.”

All but a confession. Jade’s eyes flicker towards the sword on Citan’s belt. He has never seen Citan wield a sword before, but neither is he surprised by its presence. It would be foolish to assume Citan only knows how to fight with Jade’s spear. And only the stupidest of drivers do not possess some kind of weapon of their own, for when their blade’s weapon is unavailable to them for whatever reason. Citan is not stupid.

Jade wonders if this is how it went, every time before.

And he thinks to himself.

_Not this time._

He focuses on the ambient ether gathered around Citan, the water particles in the air, commands them to _freeze._ Nothing too fancy. Just enough to seal Citan’s sword in its sheath. And then Jade summons his spear and hefts it, feet sliding across the floor to balance himself.

Citan laughs as soon as Jade does.

“And what do you intend to do?” he asks, like he couldn’t find this any more hilarious. “If I die, so do you.”

“Oh no, I’m afraid you’re mistaken,” Jade says, and when he smiles, it is sharp and genuine. “The only one who will be dying here today is you, Citan.”

A thin layer of ice crystalizes over the ground behind Citan. Jade lunges.

It happens rather fast. Citan takes a step back, instantly loses his footing. To say that Jade’s core did anything other than sing with deep satisfaction would be to lie. Relishing in every second of this, Jade reaches out and catches Citan by the collar of his shirt, holding him upright so he does not bash his head against the ground.

Jade has never smiled wider.

“I have to admit,” he says, as he takes in the sight of Citan—glasses askew and staring wide-eyed and startled up at him— “I much prefer the view of you like this.”

Citan’s hands move to unsheathe his sword, finds he cannot, and in that moment Jade brings his spear down. He buries it in Citan’s left hip, as deep as he can, slow and twisting and painful. He drinks in the way Citan arches away from him, the way Citan bites his tongue so he does not scream, drinks it in and smiles all the wider.

“Well,” Citan says, after a moment, labored but chuckling. “Congratulations, Jade. I suppose you finally outplayed me.” He smirks, infuriatingly serene. “Do you want to know how many lifetimes it took you?”

Jade’s satisfaction snaps, for a moment, smile faltering. He plasters it back on.

“I counted one—” he pulls his spear out, plunges it into a different section of Citan’s flesh, “—two—” out, and in again, “— _three._ ” He smiles, cocks his head to the side in question, as Citan trembles and coughs, beginning to choke on his own blood. “Am I missing any?”

It takes Citan a second to find his voice around the blood in his throat, but he laughs as he coughs. “Honestly? I wasn’t even counting.”

Like it didn’t even matter. Like it was just an inconvenience. Like he couldn’t even be bothered to take satisfaction in the evil he was committing like a decent villain. Jade hates him for that all the more.

“Then,” Jade says, smile tight and vision blurring with his anger. “In case I missed a few—”

He pulls his spear out and plunges it in again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And—

An ether link snaps, breaking Jade out of his trance.

Thankfully, though Jade’s work has left a bloody mess in place of Citan’s abdomen, he didn’t slip up enough to have harmed the one part of Citan he needs to remain whole. He lets go of Citan’s shirt and lets him fall gracelessly onto the ground. Steady hands, now. He only gets one chance at this, and he doesn’t have much time.

Gripping his spear at the base of the blade, he sets about carving Citan’s heart out of his chest.

Myyah takes a shuddering, gasping breath, lungs filling with air after by all accounts they shouldn’t have been able to again. It’s a moment before her kickstarted heart has pumped enough blood to her brain for her to process what is going on, exactly. She’s alive. How is she alive? There was—

_Her children._

She throws herself upright, is immediately caught by warm hands.

“Careful there,” warns—Jade, his voice gentle, playful. “I wouldn’t push myself, if I were you.”

“Where’s—” Myyah gasps, ignoring Jade’s protests, using him as leverage to get to her feet, though her head is spinning too much and all it grants her is getting halfway there and then falling to her knees, Jade still steadying her with his hands on her arms. “The- the _Aegises_ —” she gasps out. “Where are—”

Her eyes scan the room, her desk, where she’d seen their core crystals last. She’d only just finished them days ago, had been working on fine-tuning—putting off handing them over, making excuses, knowing she would be killed if she awakened them but still wanting to anyway, wondering if she could get away with it, just to see them _once_ before… before…

And then someone had killed her.

“I didn’t see any Aegis core crystals when I got here,” Jade says. “So I assume your would-be killer got impatient with your delays and took them.”

Myyah scoffs, short and annoyed, eyes transfixed on the place she’d last seen her children. She’s unsurprised that they are gone but it still _stings,_ it eats at her very soul, the pain and the frustration that she never got to see them. “They didn’t have to _kill me_ for that,” she grumbles. “What if something had gone wrong with them, hmm? Who would they have gotten to fix it?”

“They would have found someone to replace you,” Jade says, plainly. “Just as they replaced the rest of us.”

Myyah wants to complain more, but then the rest of this situation really starts to settle in. First—herself, alive, when she remembers dying. Second, and more startling—Jade. Covered in blood. It smells kind of fresh. His clothes are ruined. His hands where they meet her skin are somewhat sticky. And it obviously cannot be _Jade’s_ blood, because blades bleed ether, and ether evaporates the moment it hits air. A part of Myyah thinks maybe she should be repulsed, but concern wins out over that one as she peers towards him, studying his face.

“Jade… what happened to you?” she asks, reaching up to brush hair out of his face and tuck it behind his ear. He responds to the touch much like a stone would, but he doesn’t pull away, either.

“Me? Oh, don’t worry about me, I’m fine,” he assures her. “In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been better.”

Myyah wants to press, but—that smile is the most genuine smile she thinks she’s ever seen on his face. It actually reaches his eyes, and looks relaxed, relieved, like a huge weight has been lifted from his shoulders. Curious, unwilling to go without answers, and having a hunch, Myyah rests her hand over his chest, right where humans keep their hearts.

She’d expected the heartbeat, but actually _feeling_ it makes her jump a little.

“Jade…” she begins.

He shakes his head, still smiling. “Really, I don’t need you fussing,” he insists, something just short of an edge in his tone. “I’m _fine._ More importantly, Myyah, how are you? It seems my theory was sound enough, but…” He looks her over, much less like a worried friend and much more like a curious scientist, but Myyah barely notices.

“What?” Myyah asks, and then reaches up to touch what he’s staring at. Feeling the smooth hardness of a core crystal instead of the soft give of skin makes her jump again. She looks down to examine it properly, noting her open shirt and the fact she too is covered in blood. ( _How much of the blood on Jade’s hands right now is hers, actually?_ ) The core crystal—orange, too small to be a full one—is nestled next to her heart.

“Oh,” she says.

“Oh?” Jade asks, like he’d expected a little more from her.

“How is this…” Myyah begins, but gets distracted. She _recognizes_ that orange. “Is this Poppi’s?”

“Don’t tell me you’re _upset_.”

“I…” Myyah fidgets a little where she sits, pushing Jade’s hands off of her as she does so, scowling. “No,” she insists. There’s a tug in her gut, but it’s fine. “No I’m just… What did you _do?_ How did this _work_?”

“Honestly, I wasn’t entirely certain it would,” Jade admits. “But I’m glad it did.” He cocks his head briefly with a playful grin. “No telling about the side effects, though. Blade eater research is less extensive than flesh eater research. You’re quite lucky I even found the footnote about it.”

“Oh, shut up,” Myyah spits, but it’s fond, because this just means he cares about her. She sets about buttoning her shirt back up. Finds she’s trembling, a little, making the buttons hard. She supposes dying and then coming back to life will do that to a person.

Imagine that. Her, cheating death!

…which means someone tried to kill her to begin with.

“We should get going,” Jade says.

“Going?” Myyah repeats, looking up at him.

“Everyone thinks you’re dead,” he reminds her. “And unless you want to die again, it better stay that way. The sooner we leave, the better.”

“That’s—” He has a point, but. “What about—” _my children,_ “What about the Aegises? Can’t we try and—find them, save them, take them with us…”

“I will not sacrifice my life for them, Myyah, but if you desire to, be my guest,” Jade tells her, getting to his feet.

She’s not certain if he intends to leave then and there, but definitely wouldn’t put it past him. Myyah shudders, briefly, so full with indecision and emotion and frustration she feels about ready to burst. She finishes buttoning her shirt. Wonders if maybe she should have taken a shower first. Wonders, exactly, how much time she has to get out of here safely.

Wonders if she can forgive herself for leaving her children behind.

Knows that she can’t.

“I’m staying,” she tells Jade. “I have to save them— _somehow,_ I have to. I have to try.”

“They’ll never let you get away with it,” Jade argues.

“I still have to try.”

Jade sighs deep and frustrated, massaging the bridge of his nose under his glasses. Finally he exhales, shoulders set. “Then this is where we part ways, Myyah,” he says. “Please do not waste your life. Very few people will be happy to discover you are still alive.”

“And maybe the fact that they didn’t succeed in killing me will give them second thoughts,” Myyah argues back, proud.

“Believe what you will.”

Myyah sighs. She doesn’t begrudge him his doubt, though. And she certainly doesn’t begrudge him his freedom. He deserves that.

She does worry about him, though. He is still her friend.

“Jade?” she asks.

He hesitates, but he turns to her, exasperated but patient, and she’s grateful he hadn’t wished to only walk away from here without saying goodbye.

“Hm?” he says.

“Where… will you go?”

Jade thinks about it for a moment, and as he thinks, his exasperation fades slowly into peace.

“I don’t know,” he admits, after a long moment. He’s grinning. “But… I suppose I can go wherever I want.”


	25. trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Until I find the one where you'll return to me..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there are. a Fuck Ton of characters in this installment that come from fandoms outside ToS, so a list + visual guide + accompanying lore re: what they're doing here in ywkon, anyway can be found [here!](https://rarsneezes.dreamwidth.org/18116.html)
> 
> this chapter requires no content warnings

Getting his arm twisted behind his back and a knife pressed to his throat is _not_ the way Kratos expected to be greeted when he stepped foot into this town. There's a second where he cannot think cannot breathe until he very firmly reminds himself that as horrible as the sensation of fingers around his wrist and the fact that he cannot move is, the worst his assailant can do to him right now is kill him. The sky is above him. Those who hurt him are dead. That knife is pressing too deep into his skin to make elbowing his assailant or blasting them with ether a smart move. If he startles them, they will slit his throat whether they mean to or not. And, he would rather not die here in the middle of nowhere, so…

“Forgive me,” Kratos says, as evenly as he can around the clutch in his chest. Hopefully, he can talk his way out of this. “I did not mean to intrude.”

“What are you doing here?” his assailant asks. A woman’s voice. “How did you find out about this place?”

“I was just passing through. I did not realize there was a town here until it was in sight,” Kratos answers, which is mostly the truth. Also, _town_ might be a little generous, he realizes. The buildings look to be have constructed recently—and without much finesse—and there certainly aren’t more than twenty or so, total. It must be a very small population living here.

“Well you can do us a favor by _getting out_ ,” the woman tells him. With his arm pinned where it is, she has no trouble maneuvering him until he’s turned back around, facing the open plain instead of the village.

“Please,” Kratos argues. “It has been a long journey, and I would like a place to rest tonight. I have gald.” The desire for a bed is less important to him than curiosity to discover more about this village. It’s stationed in the borderlands between the two countries—an interesting spot—and Kratos couldn’t remember it being there last time he looked, even if that _was_ some fifty years ago, which is why he came to investigate. ( _He regrets that decision, just a little._ )

“You have a name?” his assailant asks.

Kratos takes a deep breath. Decides not to lie, for some reason.

“Kratos Aurion,” he says.

The woman holding him laughs, sharp and bright. “Yeah, right!” she says. “The driver of the Aegises, man who ended the First Great War? He’s been dead hundreds of years.”

Kratos raises his eyebrows, surprised by the passion she insists this with. He supposes his disappearance from the world’s eye would have made it seem that way, but… “What makes you say that?” he asks.

“Because no human could have lived this long!” is the answer he gets.

Kratos’ chest constricts. No. _No._

“Who says he was human?” he counters, a quiet question whispered in disbelief.

“Every history book ever,” the woman explains, haughty and still oh-so-confident. “I doubt _both_ countries got that wrong.”

Kratos laughs, empty. Of course they would. Humans just couldn’t stand the thought of their war being stopped by a blade—by a _flesh eater_. Changing history so it was one of their own that ended it made it easier to swallow, didn’t it? Anger sparks in his chest.

“Kratos Aurion was a blade,” he says, voice cold. He reaches up to wrench the knife away from his neck, the woman startled enough by his declaration that he manages to get it away from her. “In fact, he is a flesh eater, and has lived hundreds of years.” He spins the knife around in his palm, holds it over his shoulder so his assailant can get a good look at the mix of blood and ether that clings to the metal. “I am he.”

The woman is silent for a moment, then she releases him and snatches her knife back. She squints a little closer at it. “Well I’ll be damned…”

Now that he can see her, Kratos can tell she’s a human, which comes as a bit of a surprise, and immediately sets him on edge. ( _He can’t help it. Few interactions he’s had with humans have been good._ ) She’s a head shorter than him, brown hair cropped to her shoulders, brown skin, dark eyes. Something about her gives Kratos the sense of Strength—not necessarily physical, though she’s certainly not _lacking_ in muscles, either—which doesn’t exactly comfort him.

When she looks up at him with anger in those dark eyes, Kratos regrets coming here completely.

“Then tell me, _Kratos Aurion._ ” She manages to spit his name like it’s a curse. “If you’ve been alive all this time, then why the _hell_ are we still at war? Stopped one and then decided it was time to retire, who gives a damn what the world thinks!”

Kratos scowls.

“Humans are much too stubborn,” he says. “It became clear to me that they were never going to stop their endless war. So, yes, I gave up.”

Hearing the same argument every twenty years made it easy to get exasperated. They stopped listening to him at peace talks. He had less sway with only one Aegis. No one would admit to having Martel. They all eyed Mithos hungrily. Mithos gave up after a hundred years. Kratos after two hundred, and he barely made it that long, with Mithos’ distaste for humanity filling him to his core each time he tried. It’s strange, actually, to stand before a human and _not_ be filled to the brim with Mithos’ hatred. But he isn’t Mithos’ driver anymore.

(Humanity would _never_ listen to him, now.)

The woman standing before him shakes her head, disgusted. “Not all humans want this war,” she says. “Some of us actually want to see it _end._ Some of us actually want to live without the fear that everything will be ripped from us at a moment’s notice.”

Kratos stares at her, surprised by the notion. If he’s heard a human protest about the endless war, it’s been a very, _very_ long time.

“Is that so?” Kratos asks.

The woman considers him a long moment, and then slowly, she grins. “It is,” she says. With a flourish, she wipes her knife clean and returns it to its sheath. “My name’s Anna Irving. Let me show you.”

She leads him into the village.

Anna’s not sure what to make of _Kratos Aurion,_ to be honest. She leads him through her town, introduces him to her family, most of them blades or flesh eaters like him, and that gets him to relax, just a little, but. She knows he isn’t wholly relaxed. His eyes are watching his peripherals and not her face the whole time she talks, he never unclenches his fists once, and the most she gets out of him is bored amusement, never a smile, and certainly no more than a cruel little laugh about how she can try all she wants, but the war’s never going to end, no matter what she does.

She thinks that’s fucking coward’s talk, but doesn’t say it to his face.

She puts up with his company, does her best to change his mind, which in the few hours before sunset she has, mostly just consists of trying to do her best to show off how _it’s absolutely possible for blades and humans to live together,_ because, like. What else is she going to do, huh? She can tell he’s too stubborn to listen if she tries to talk at him all night, so she doesn’t.

So she takes him on a tour, asks him a little about the war he ended ( _he refuses to talk much about it other than to make more bitter comments about how his efforts were for nothing_ ), asks him about himself ( _he won’t say much there, either_ ), and then offers him a place to stay for the night since he said he wanted that ( _she thinks he was lying, but he’s sticking to the lie, so she will, too_ ), and refuses his money because they have never taken money from a passing blade before and probably never will. That’s not the _point_ of this town.

The town exists as a refuge for anyone who has ever been burned by this endless war, and if there’s a blade that fits that bill better than _Kratos fucking Aurion,_ Anna sure hasn’t met them.

And she supposes—she gets it. Of course he doesn’t like her. She’s human. He’s not the only blade she’s met that hates humanity on principle ( _Akhos and Patroka were like that, for a while, and still kind of are_ ). Oppression of blades is kind of ridiculous, and oppression of flesh eaters even worse than that, and—

The history books fucking rewrote history so that Kratos wouldn’t be remembered as he really is. Anna thinks she’d probably hate humanity too, if they spat on her memory like that.

So, whatever.

Kratos Aurion: weirdest blade she’s ever met, doesn’t have a lot of nice things to say, acts like he’d rather be anywhere else even though _he’s_ the one who walked into her town. Probably valid for how bitter he is about the war and everything. Stays the night, leaves before anyone wakes up in the morning.

And that’s fine? That’s fine.

Anna’s pretty sure within the week he’s going to feel more like a weird dream she had than anything else, and she’s grateful the rest of the town saw him too, because like. Kratos Aurion. The guy everyone thought had been dead for hundreds of years. Legend and war hero. _Talking to her?_ Yeah, must have been a really weird dream.

The weirder thing is that he comes back.

“You really don’t like humans, do you?” Anna asks him.

Kratos scowls at the question, at her tone—mostly curious, but just close enough to accusing that it makes his shoulders hunch and hands tighten on his mug of coffee. It’s—he probably deserves that, though, since he’s been giving Lora weird looks ( _he can’t help it_ ) up until she left the room, just now, and Lora is Anna’s sister and so she has every right to be a little touchy, honestly.

He only wishes that he has an explanation for why that isn’t the truth, because saying you spent the first few—months? Years? Honestly he doesn’t know how long it was—of your life being experimented on _by humans,_ who then went on to prove to you at every turn they only see blades as tools, considering the fact they were _torturing_ the blades you’d later adopt as your siblings.

“Anna, give him a break,” Jin interjects, soft. Kratos likes Jin. He’s quiet, gentle, always gives Kratos his space.

Anna sends a look across the table at her father ( _she considers him as such as much as she considers Lora her sister, even though Malos is the one who raised her_ ), face scrunched up with annoyance. “I’m just curious!” she protests, then sends another look at Kratos, and sighs. “I mean he doesn’t have to answer if he doesn’t want to, but.”

Kratos exhales slowly. Sets his coffee mug back on the table.

“They’ve just never given me much reason to trust them,” he answers.

“Sounds like you just haven’t given them the chance,” Anna counters, and she could almost sound like Lora when she does that, if only she didn’t draw herself up and sound so high and mighty.

Jin looks like he’s about to interject again, but Kratos is fine, really.

“Why should I?” he asks, simple. “Name one human who actually treats their blade as their equal—one who _doesn’t_ live in this village.”

Anna closes her open mouth as soon as he adds that stipulation. Kratos allows himself to feel smug, justified.

“Humanity as a whole sees blades as tools at best and toys at worst,” he says. “Of course I do not trust them.”

Anna considers that for a moment, considers _him,_ scrutinizing him with a weighty gaze, like she’s trying to pick him apart to better understand him. Kratos refuses to be cowed, so he straightens his shoulders and holds her gaze, daring her to challenge his claim. Just because she was a driver at a young age and was raised by her blade doesn’t mean she hasn’t seen the atrocities of oppression, of this system. He knows that. She’s told him herself why this town exists. A refuge for blades and humans and those in between, regardless of whether they are here because of the war or because of who knows what else.

Blades wouldn’t need somewhere to run _to_ if they didn’t have something to run _from_.

Anna takes a deep breath. Pushes, gentle, curious.

“You still hang around here,” she says, and it’s not an accusation, it’s a wonder.

Kratos ducks his head down now, embarrassed by that, just a little. Of course, a village full of humans who actually give a shit about blades is a rarity, and he was curious, so he kept coming back. It only makes sense.

Only, he knows there’s more to it than that. He knows that there’s something else that keeps drawing him back here, even after every time he leaves. He just can’t quite put his finger on _what_.

( _But it does make him wonder—if Mithos wasn’t waiting at the tower, if Mithos wasn’t waiting for him to return, would Kratos stay here in this village? A part of him thinks he might._ )

Regardless.

“You’re different,” he tells Anna, and then refuses to elaborate.

They’re on the way back from the market a town over—Kratos had to get supplies for him and _his_ family ( _just the brother and… whatever it is Presea is to him, even Kratos doesn’t seem sure if it’s sister or daughter or if it’s just close friend_ )—and so he came along with the supply run for the village. He and Anna walk a little behind the group, because it’s nice to spend time alone together, and honestly Anna quite enjoys Kratos’ company? He’s fun to be around!

He seems a little more on edge today than usual, but Anna doesn’t think too much of it ( _they_ did _just spend literal hours interacting with human merchants, so honestly? He’s valid_ ). He makes polite conversation well enough, and tells Anna that he doesn’t mind listening to her babble much at all, so babble she does, talking about Aselia’s wildlife as they pass nests of flamiis and volfs ( _they aren’t really monsters? Some of them just get territorial sometimes!_ ) because honestly flamiis are some of the prettiest birds Anna has ever seen and hey is that a gold one, she’s never seen a gold one before.

“Wait, Kratos, look,” she says and she catches him by the arm—

And the next thing Anna knows is that she’s on the ground and her head is ringing and her abdomen hurts in all the tender places.

It takes her another second to realize that _Kratos just threw her._

“Okay,” Anna says, a little strained, because her lungs are still tight and burning. She pushes herself up on her elbows to better look at Kratos. “What the fuck?” she asks, confused more than she is angry, though she is a little bit of that, as well. Her ears pound with adrenaline.

“Don’t _fucking_ touch me,” Kratos spits, eyes dark and tone like steel.

“Okay, got it,” Anna says, though that doesn’t help her confusion much because she’s pretty sure she’s done that before and it’s been fine? Maybe it wasn’t, though. Her memory’s not _perfect._ How should she know? “Um.”

She doesn’t get anything else out before her resonance link sings with Malos’ proximity.

“Hey, the fuck’s going on here?” he says, and though he sends a kind of Look at Kratos, the first thing he does is get close enough to Anna so he can help her up. She takes his hand and lets him yank her to her feet, still kind of stunned. The emotion bleed fills with sharp protectiveness under Malos’ confusion.

Kratos blinks, then all of a sudden looks like he just realized where the fuck he is.

“Oh,” he says, and then, “Sorry,” he says all terse and short and he _won’t look at her,_ now. All of his sharp angles and fierce anger turn docile as he pulls in on himself, awkward and hunched. “Just— Actually my destination is due south of here, so I think I should probably go ahead on my own.”

And before Anna can open her mouth again, he’s walking, adjusting how his pack sits on his back as he goes.

She thinks about going after him, because she kind of wants to know _what the fuck,_ but maybe she should give him his space? Whatever _that_ was, it was… something else. She recognizes that just-short-of terrified look that had sat in Kratos’ eyes from the way Mik gets on bad nights, and. Honestly. She knows approximately jack shit about Kratos’ past outside of his involvement in the war and with the Aegises, so. He’s probably got a perfectly valid reason for whatever the hell that was, even if he doesn’t want to talk about it.

“You two get in a fight or something?” Malos asks, worried, his hands still steadying Anna.

“No, no,” she tells him, quickly, not wanting her father to worry about _that_. “I think I just startled him.”

“You ain’t going after him?”

“If he wants space, he can have it,” Anna says.

It’s about three weeks before Kratos can find the time and the excuse to go back. ( _It’s difficult to say if Mithos is jealous or simply just finds Kratos not being around weird, either which Kratos thinks is somewhat reasonable. So much time apart after hundreds of years together_ is _weird, but Mithos does not want to leave the tower and Kratos will not make him, so they’ve settled into Kratos alternating locations every month or so_.) It takes Kratos another three hours to work up the nerve to actually head into the village—it’s past sundown by the time he does, which only makes him hesitate a little more because _perhaps_ he should just wait until morning, except he really doesn’t want to sleep _outside_ the village and it’s not _so much_ past sundown that Anna isn’t still awake, he thinks. And he really, really does not want to put this off any longer. The words have been jumbling around in his head ever since he walked away three weeks ago, and they’ve only jumbled around louder over the past few days as he made the trek back, and if he has to think any more about _how exactly_ he’s going to articulate all of the _bullshit_ he’s been through when it’s the _absolute last thing_ he wants to do, he’s probably going to vomit.

So his nerves are a wreck enough that he’s shaking a little, when he knocks his knuckles against the wood of Anna’s door. He stands and trembles with how sick he feels regarding what he’s about to do as he waits, but he hears Anna’s voice after a moment call that she heard and that she’s coming and Kratos would breathe a sigh of relief if he wasn’t dreading the conversation he’s about to have.

The door opens, and he watches as Anna’s face goes from curious to surprised to delighted, grinning openly as she takes in the sight of him.

“Oh, hey! Kratos!!” she says, and he’s so focused on trying not to vomit that he completely misses how the joy in her voice sounds kind of like there’s literally no one else on the planet she’d rather be seeing right now. She smoothly slides out of the way and holds the door open for him. “Come in, come in, you want some coffee?”

Kratos considers the matter of coffee long enough that his feet decide his brain is taking too long and kindly deposit him inside so Anna can shut the door while he finishes debating. Kratos stands awkwardly in the doorway as Anna slips around the bar that separates the kitchen from the front room, clearly intent on making coffee at least for herself. Kratos isn’t honestly sure if coffee would help his nerves or make them worse, so finally he settles on:

“So long as you won’t be offended if it turns out I cannot stomach it,” he tells her.

She hesitates a moment before answering. “…sure,” she calls, though, and while it’s bright, it’s also pinched with concern.

Kratos knows he does not need express permission to make himself at home, so he lowers himself onto her couch and waits, rubbing his palms together as he does. Only the friction of his gloves against each other keeps this sensation from setting his mind on fire. He hopes this is over quickly, and gets done without him actually having a panic attack.

“Here,” Anna says, holding out the mug of coffee to him.

If his skin brushes hers that _will_ be the end of it, so Kratos swallows and mumbles something about if she couldn’t just put it on the small little table next to him instead. She doesn’t do so _immediately,_ but she does, sending him a funny little look all the while. She hesitates before she sits, then decides to sit in the armchair to the left of the couch, which essentially puts her on the opposite side of the room. Kratos is ashamed, if grateful. He breathes, slow and shaky. Doesn’t pick up the coffee, just yet. At least the smell is comforting.

“Are you… okay?” Anna asks him, slowly.

“I’m…” Kratos begins to answer, but _Architect_ he does not want to spend another minute dodging the rest of this conversation, so he decides to just not answer that one. ( _No he is not, the why is difficult to explain, the only thing Anna can do to help is let him speak._ ) Instead he plunges into what he came here for: “Listen, I… I suppose I probably shouldn’t have left as I did, last time, but I… was… embarrassed.” He stares at the uneven wooden floor of Anna’s house rather than at her, at least until she shifts just quickly enough that his eyes swing to her _just to make sure._ She was only adjusting how she was sitting, though, pulling her legs up under her, coffee held to her chest. Kratos swallows and continues: “And I- I needed to be. Elsewhere.”

Anna nods, ever patient, which is a marvel considering how fast paced she is. “That’s fair,” she assures him.

Kratos swallows again. Picks the coffee up just to delay having to speak. Doesn’t take a sip, because his throat feels too tight and his stomach in knots.

“But I…” he says. “I suppose you are wondering…”

“What the fuck?” Anna finishes when he cannot, and she laughs, lightly, when he hums in affirmation. She takes a sip of her coffee, then shrugs. “It’s- I mean it wasn’t too hard to figure out. It’s ‘cuz I grabbed you all of a sudden, right?”

Kratos blinks. Nods, shakily, because he does not trust his voice right now.

“I’m assuming I shouldn’t do that like, at all, ever again, right?” Anna continues.

Kratos wets his lips. It’s a moment before the words in his head make it to sounds in his mouth. “…I- I would prefer if you… didn’t,” he manages.

“Okay,” Anna says, like it’s that simple.

Kratos holds his coffee in both hands, numbly, the heat of the mug seeping through his gloves and into his skin, a pleasant sensation, though his mind is not on it. He watches Anna, mouth somewhat agape, trying to figure out when exactly they got so far off track of where he thought this conversation was going to go.

“Okay?” he manages, finally, confused.

“Yeah,” Anna says. “I mean it’s- It’s not _complicated._ Honestly that was really careless of me? I’d’ve probably reacted the same way… or…” She grimaces. “Well. Similarly. Maybe? Regardless! I’m not mad, and I’m _really_ sorry.”

Kratos doesn’t say anything for another long moment, still trying to find his footing. Finally he manages to remember that he also feels bad about what happened, because it would be unfair to punish Anna for crossing a boundary she didn’t know existed, so:

“I am also sorry,” he tells her.

“You don’t have to be sorry,” she counters immediately. “Like I said, that was _really_ careless of me.”

Kratos isn’t sure what to say, so he just doesn’t. He finally takes a sip of his coffee, instead. To his surprise it’s—perfect. Generally he isn’t picky about his coffee so long it’s on the blacker end of the scale, but his favorite is the kind of coffee that has just enough cream to take the edge of bitterness off without diminishing its strength at all. The fact that Anna remembered goes down as warmly as the coffee does, knots in his stomach loosening so long as he does not think about the potential rest of this conversation.

( _They are so far off track where he thought they were going to go, though. Can he hope that he will not have to say anything at all?_ )

“Also, hey,” Anna hedges, and then waits patiently for Kratos to look up at her before she continues. “Just so we’re clear… Like. Do you just want me to avoid grabbing you and sneaking up on you and shit, or should I also just avoid touching you in general?”

“Oh,” Kratos says. He wasn’t expecting that question at all, somehow. “It.” He swallows. Takes another sip of coffee, since it seems to be helping. “Definitely do not grab or sneak up on me.”

“Gotcha,” Anna says.

Kratos takes a second again, fingernails tapping against the mug he’s holding, appreciating the sound and the sensation reverbing minutely through his bones as he sorts out his words.

“Touch is… I mean I only can’t stand being touched _sometimes_ ,” he explains, somewhat slow. It’s not something he’s had to explain before, because Mithos has always known and Presea has never been keen on physical contact to begin with, so it was never a problem with her. “There are good days and bad days. And I’m fine on the good days. I can tolerate it on the good days.”

Anna frowns, just a little, still patient and curious but that touch of worry comes back as she speaks. “…tolerating it and actually wanting to be touched are two different things, though?” she says.

Kratos blinks. She’s… _right,_ obviously. But he’s never thought about it before. The exact difference between putting up with it when Mithos clings to him and actually seeking Mithos out himself, wanting to feel Mithos close and alive and appreciating the quiet joy of physical reassurance that another living being exists near you. There _is_ a difference, he realizes. And it’s more precise than good days and bad days.

Not that good days and bad days _don’t_ happen to Kratos. If Anna had grabbed him any other day, he probably would have reacted slightly less drastically.

So.

“I mean, it’s,” he begins, and then gets lost along the way.

“Yeah?” Anna presses.

“Sorry,” Kratos apologizes, on reflex, usually frustrated by how long it takes him to find words but especially frustrated by it right now. “I’ve never really had to articulate this before.”

“Take your time,” Anna insists, still patient, somehow, listening rapt like this is the most important conversation she’s ever had.

“I’m… I really _am_ fine, on good days,” Kratos says. Saying he likes being touched or wants to be touched is more awkward than he can make himself do, for some reason, so he doesn’t. “It’s just that I also have bad days. So…” What now? How does he articulate to Anna exactly the knowledge that Mithos has built up over hundreds of years, most of which were spent in resonance together? How does he explain to her what looks like a bad day and what doesn’t, and isn’t that too much to ask? Perhaps he should just brace himself for her to get it wrong as she learns it over the next course of time…

“Why don’t I just ask before I touch you, ever?” Anna offers, completely derailing him. At the look he gives her—completely baffled because they conversation is so far off the track he expected that they might as well have careened into a ditch and then climbed right back out of it—she shrugs. “I mean, that just seems like the pretty obvious solution here!”

“It,” Kratos says. She’s still right. But he feels bad. “I mean you don’t have to…”

“I do though??” Anna protests, her voice soft and fond. “I don’t want to accidentally trigger a panic attack for you or anything? That’s—I mean that’s shitty, and it will take me all of two seconds to ask, and when it only takes me two seconds to ask if I don’t I’m kind of just being an asshole?”

Kratos is so lost that he just takes a drink of coffee instead of pretending he wants to speak.

It’s fine, because Anna keeps talking anyway.

“Actually I should clarify: I’ll _try_ to ask first,” she says, fidgeting a little like she’s anxious. “I’m a touchy-feely kind of gal so it’s probably gonna take me a bit to condition myself to not just go for it without thinking, but I _will_ make an effort, I promise. You’ll just have to be patient for a few months while I get used to it.”

Kratos swallows. “That’s… fine,” he assures her, because he recognizes that he’s supposed to say words, and he _is_ fine with that, really. He appreciates that she cares at all. But. “You… you don’t have to,” he tries again.

Anna shakes her head, much more serious this time when she insists: “I _do_.” There is no room for argument around that tone. Then she smiles, relaxed again. “Like, especially if it’s going to make your life better? I _like_ having you around, Kratos, and if we’re gonna remain friends then, you know. I need to not fuck it up by totally ignoring your boundaries.”

Kratos takes a shaky breath, and has to set his coffee mug down. Then again, he feels completely lost without it to hold, so he picks it back up. He jostles his right leg once, twice, full of restless energy that makes him forget entirely about the knots in his stomach. No one’s ever sat him down and had such a lengthy conversation about his boundaries with him before. And certainly no one—no _human_ —has ever insisted so thoroughly and immediately that they were going to respect them like Anna just has.

He appreciates that more than he has words or thoughts for.

He has no idea what to do with it.

“Anyway I think that’s it,” Anna says after a moment, filling the silence he leaves like she always does. “Unless there’s something I missed or something else you wanted to say? …Kratos?”

The knots in his stomach are back. He puts the coffee down for real this time, because if he even thinks about drinking it he will throw up. She- she _asked,_ though, Kratos. She _asked,_ remember that, she did not demand. So perhaps… He can get away with asking in return.

“You… don’t need me to explain… why…?” Kratos asks with some effort, each word lodged in his throat and not wanting to come out.

Anna blinks at him. Slowly raises her eyebrows in genuine surprise. “No?” she says.

“Oh.”

Anna seems to realize his exact thought process, because she sits up abruptly and leans in his direction, gaping with concern.

“Holy shit, Kratos, did you really think I was gonna—” she starts, then can’t seem to finish, the thought either too absurd or too terrible for her. “Of course I wasn’t going to ask _why_ you hate being touched, that’s none of my fucking business? Not unless you _want_ to make it my business, but you’re looking like you don’t…”

“I do not,” Kratos says, immensely grateful for the out.

“Then you don’t have to?? _Architect,_ I don’t know who you’ve been hanging out with but _don’t ask someone about their trauma_ is absolutely rule number one around here,” Anna insists, then gets distracted. “Well okay, if there were an _actual_ list of rules for this town it probably wouldn’t be the _first_ one, but it would be up there? That’s besides the point—”

It’s cute that she gets distracted like that, though. Kratos laughs, kind of shaky, incredibly relieved. The abrupt release of every knot in his stomach feels about as shitty as them being there to begin with, though. He’s not sure how long it’s going to take his nerves to calm down.

“Thank you,” he says, though. “I appreciate it.”

“Sure!!” Anna says, and shifts in her chair. She takes a long drag of her coffee, then looks at Kratos, eyebrows raised. “Anyway what… do you want to do now?” she asks. “I’ve got a ton of dirt to catch you up on about the past three weeks, but…?” She trails off, tone pitched upward in invitation for literally anything else he wants.

Kratos isn’t sure, other than that he wants a distraction.

“Actually,” he says. “If you _were_ making a list of rules for this town, what _would_ that first one be?”

“ _Hmm_!” Anna says back, short and pointed and looking delighted to have the opportunity to figure it out. Will it be useless? Yes. Do either of them care? No.

They spend the rest of the night hashing it out, until Kratos’ nerves have calmed enough that he can think about getting some sleep without having to worry about having a nightmare. It’s stupid, and pointless, but it’s _fun._ And Kratos realizes how much he’d missed Anna, while he’d been away.

Later, as Anna starts putting into practice her insistence of asking before touching him, Kratos reflects:

He didn’t realize how empowering it was, to have the space to say no.

He didn’t realize how empowering it was, to have the space to say _yes_.

“Sophie said you wanted me for something, Malik?” Jade asks, extracting himself from the back rooms of the tavern they run together. Well, Malik runs it, really, all Jade does is the accounting, but Malik insists it’s _theirs,_ and Jade has had much too much of people claiming his work as their own to really turn down an offer like that.

Malik perks up at the sound of his voice, waves him over to join him at the bar, where he’s mixing a drink for a patron. “Come over here, I need you to tell me I’m not seeing things,” Malik says, passing the patron their drink and winking at them as they idle off to their table, then to Jade he elaborates: “Over there. Anna.” He gestures with his chin, which is really unnecessary. Jade would have to be both deaf and blind to miss Anna’s table. She and Malos are both incapable of being anything but loud, especially when together, especially when they’re both well on the way to getting drunk.

( _His attention automatically swings to her the moment she’s in a room, anyway. He’s used to seeing her at all again, by now—it’s been five years since she stumbled back into his and Malik’s lives—but there’s an insatiable curiosity in his bones, eager to know where the Anna he knew a hundred years ago ends and where the Anna he knows now begins._

 _She’s happier, for starters. Her humor and volume haven’t changed a bit, though._ )

“What about her?” Jade asks, plopping his elbows down on the bar and leaning obnoxiously over it, just to get in Malik’s way. ( _Malik is used to this and all his other tricks, of course, but it’s still fun_.)

“Just watch her and Kratos, tell me what you think,” Malik says.

“Alright,” Jade says. He pushes his glasses up his nose and then rests his chin in his hands, watching as requested. He and Malik both know who Kratos is, of course. Everyone in the village knows, by now. ( _Jade knew_ of _Kratos before that, as did Malik, but neither of them had met him until he showed up here._ )

Kratos is sitting next to Anna, and though Jade would almost expect him to be bothered by the noise, he’s more relaxed right now than Jade has ever seen him. Maybe it’s the alcohol. Maybe it’s something else…? The noise in the tavern is really too loud to make out what anyone at that table is _saying,_ but Anna says something and Kratos clearly quips back, and Anna’s laugh is loud and startled and delighted all at once, like he caught her by surprise. Her hand lingers on his shoulder. He doesn’t push her off.

“Hmm,” Jade says.

“Well?” Malik asks, eager. Hopeless romantic, is what he is.

“What are your thoughts?” Jade asks, just to better gauge the situation before he answers.

“It’s just—remember how we were talking, about her and Kratos, about whether or not maybe they’ve known each other before?”

“You really think we can determine that just by watching them for two seconds?”

“ _Look_ at them, though!”

Jade wouldn’t say that Anna’s acting more familiar with Kratos than he’s seen her with anyone else, because that’s unfair, and untrue. But—he can see what Malik is getting at, perhaps. A sense of comfort and familiarity between her and Kratos that belies how short of a time the two of them have really known each other. Malik would probably make some kind of analogy about puzzles and missing pieces now found, but Jade just shrugs.

“I’m not convinced enough to make any concrete calls,” he begins, as he straightens.

“But you _see it_ ,” Malik says, and then before he says anything else he brightens, because Anna’s sliding out of her seat and making her way over to the bar. “Oh, good,” he tells Jade, jostling him with an elbow. Jade is only knocked off balance a step, but he rolls his eyes and fixes his glasses all the same. “Watch this.”

“I don’t see how I could avoid it,” Jade remarks, and by this point Anna’s slapped her hand on the bar. She’s definitely more than just a little bit on the way to being drunk. Jade finds himself fond, despite himself.

“Heyyy Malik, my favorite bartender in the entire world, ‘nother round of drinks please?” she slurs. “Well, not for Jin, but— For my other two favorite people in the world. I don’t know why I said that instead of just their names.”

“So just you and Malos and Kratos?” Malik asks, before Anna can ramble anymore. Jade quirks his eyebrows upwards at Malik’s decision to imply Anna considers _Kratos_ one of her favorites, but Anna doesn’t protest it.

“Yes,” Anna says, and then, “Actually just me and Kratos. I don’t know why I didn’t open on that?? It’s fine it’s fine—”

Malik chuckles, lightly, reaching under the bar for clean glasses. “What was it Kratos wanted, again?”

“You literally just made it ten minutes ago, are you telling me you _forgot_ it?”

“Like you don’t regularly forget shit someone told you ten minutes ago,” Malik counters, easily.

Anna opens her mouth to protest, but obviously can’t find footing. Jade smirks into his hand, all while Anna shoots Malik a glare and then one at Jade because in her words “you don’t need to stand there and look so smug, you fucker, stay out of this,” which only makes Jade laugh a little more and Anna stick her tongue out at him.

“Kratos’ drink?” Malik repeats, gentle but still pressing.

Anna rolls her eyes. “Gin and tonic, shaken not stirred, on the rocks,” she rattles off.

“Thank you,” Malik says, smoothly, but not after sending Jade a look like _do you see this, do you SEE this,_ and were it not for Jade’s quiet surprise, he too would be rolling his eyes right now. However: Anna said that so effortlessly, so automatically, even though she’s currently drunk and frankly her short-term memory is horrendous, so there’s no way she should have remembered that any better than Malik.

And yet.

“…alright, I see what you mean,” Jade says to Malik, once Anna has taken her drinks and made her way back to her table.

“Like she’s done it a thousand times before!!” Malik says, grinning from ear-to-ear.

Jade’s smile isn’t quite as large, but as he watches Anna and Kratos again, it’s in a new light.

“Maybe she has,” he muses.

Anna flops down right on top of Malos, legs splayed across the couch and head in her father’s lap, and he shifts his arms to make space for her to get more comfortable even as he grunts, the emotion bleed exasperated but fond. “I was _reading,_ ” he protests, and there’s a second where Anna’s fully convinced he’s just going to drop his elbow onto her chest so he can hold the book up comfortably again, but he doesn’t. So Anna shoves at the book obnoxiously, grinning.

“Too bad!!” she says, brightly. “Father-daughter bonding time.”

Malos sighs dramatically, closes his book and plops it—somewhere Anna can’t see from this angle. Might’ve been the floor, based on that _thunk._ She grins up at her dad, smug at how much she’s inconveniencing him, a little bit too needy right now to really _care._ He rolls his eyes at her, but can’t hide his smile.

“Fine, fine,” he relents. “But since you’re here, why don’t we talk about the _literal ocean_ of yearning you’ve been dishing out for Kratos since he’s been gone—”

“No just kidding go back to your book!” Anna says rapidly, making to pivot herself upright and out of this conversation, but Malos pins her down with an arm across her chest. She _could_ get out of that if she wanted to, and he’d let her go, but she doesn’t _actually_ want to move and they were bound to have this conversation _eventually_ so fine, whatever, might as well be now. She scowls at Malos, though, to show she hates this, and he just grins back.

“Come onnn,” he says, brightly, his smile sharp and knowing and Anna almost feels like a kid again. “Anyone with eyes can tell you miss ‘im, but I’m _drowning_ here, Anna. And I _think_ this has to do with more than just the fact he’s been gone like two months.”

Malos has let go of her by now, so Anna grunts and folds her arms over her chest just to be petulant, glaring up at the ceiling past him. “Let me pine in peace, you bastard,” she grumbles.

“Pining?” Malos asks, like he’s unsurprised but still delighted she’s given him an opening. _Fuckin’ hell._ He’s insufferable when he wants to be. “And what the hell would you need to be pining for?”

“Shut up.”

“Sounds like _someone’s_ got a crush.”

“I do not!”

“This emotion bleed says otherwise.”

Anna does _not_ blush, nor does she splutter. “Th- It’s- it’s perfectly normal!!”

“Hmm,” Malos says. He considers her for a moment, then shrugs, his face the perfect picture of fake innocence as he leans back and drapes one arm over the back of the couch. “You know what, my mistake,” he says, and Anna bristles, because that tone says he’s about to make this worse. “Must be _me_ with the crush, then—”

“No! Disgusting!!” Anna reaches up to shove at Malos’ face, and he laughs, letting her just pat fruitlessly at him like that’ll get him to shut up. “You can’t have a crush on my- on- you can’t—” She fumbles for a word that isn’t _boyfriend_ because obviously Kratos isn’t yet, and she still doesn’t want to admit that she’s _crushing,_ never mind that she’s mortified and her face all hot and Malos is _still laughing at her_. “That’s gross!!”

“You only think it’s gross ‘cuz _you’re_ into him!” Malos argues, smug as can be.

“You’ve already got a boyfriend!!” Anna says back, just to get the conversation topic away from her.

“Hey, this ain’t about Jin! We’re talking about _you_ —”

“And why do you care about whether or not I have a crush on Kratos!!” Anna demands, as she lets her hand fall and flop kind of uselessly across her chest. “It’s none of your business!!”

“Because Anna Irving if I have to sit and watch you pine over him _while he’s in the same fucking room as you_ for any longer, then _I’m_ gonna die,” Malos says, and he full-named her, which means he’s serious. Or, as serious as he can be while also joking that her denseness is going to kill him. Which... is pretty serious, actually. “I’m starting to see why you locked me and Jin in a closet together.”

“Me and Lora did you two a favor and you know it.”

“Suppose it’s about time I return said favor—”

Anna makes a short little strangled noise because unfortunately there’s some little part of her that’s kind of delighted about the concept of that happening but first of all that’d be moving _way too fast_ and second of all— “No, no, _Architect_ you can’t!” 

“And why not? Seems only fair.”

“Because we don’t know if Kratos has claustrophobia issues and I really don’t want to find out like that!!” 

Malos opens his mouth, then closes it, knowing as well as Anna that that’s actually a really valid thing to be concerned about. But then he hums, contemplative. “I mean, it doesn’t have to be a _closet_ …” he says, slowly, thoughtfully, in the exact kind of tone that Anna knows means he has absolutely no qualms about going through with this, _the absolute bastard._

“Fuck you,” she says, and shifts so she can cross her arms again, which isn’t even remotely comfortable in this position but that’s besides the point. “It’s not- How are you supposed to do that if he’s not even here? Huh??” She immediately forgets about trying to look tough and guarded with her arms crossed, because raising a finger to wag it triumphantly at Malos is actually way more important. “That seems like a pretty critical flaw in your plan!”

“Well, why do you think I’m trying to talk to you about it now?” Malos asks, his tone edging way more towards sincere. Eyebrows raised, he smiles fondly down at her. Anna squirms a little where she lays, not sure if she wants to glare or what, the emotion bleed singing loving under her frustration. She lets her hand fall again, wrist resting across her collarbone. “Thought maybe you were just completely oblivious to how dense you were being,” Malos continues. “So I figured I should bring it up before I forced your hand.”

This is the point where Anna should admit to either her crush or explain why she’s chosen to suffer instead of telling Kratos how much she _doesn’t stop thinking about him_ , but she’s too spiteful for that, so:

“Well, you brought it up,” she says. “Happy?”

“ _Anna_ ,” Malos says, reproachful.

“What do you want from me!”

Malos heaves a sigh deep enough Anna feels it, even though she’s resting almost entirely on his _legs._ His hand that’s not draped over the back of the couch comes up to scratch at his neck, eyes fixed on the distance. He’s chewing on his words, which he barely ever does ( _he, like his daughter, like his driver, is much too impatient to wait to start sentences until he’s finished thinking them through_ ) so Anna does the nice thing and gears herself up to actually _care_ about what he wants to tell her. 

“You got a reason you ain’t telling him?” Malos asks. “Or is that for you to be stupid about and me to make drastic decisions over?”

“Hey,” she protests, softly.

“Do you?” he presses.

Anna takes a deep breath that lifts the arm resting across her stomach, staring again at the ceiling instead of Malos. She chews on her tongue for a minute, as the words catch in her throat and then her teeth, too big for her, too much to admit to. The emotion bleed must saturate with her unease, because Malos automatically lets his hand fall to run soothing fingers through her hair, and Anna leans into it much like a needy cat might better tilt their head for ear-scritches. At least Malos is steady and here, as he always is, as he’s always been for her, since that day she found her core crystal some fifteen years ago. He was a rock in her turmoil then, and he’s a rock now.

“It’s just… scary, you know?” Anna says, soft and frightened. “Being in love.”

Malos laughs, lightly, but not judging. “It’s not that scary,” he reassures her. The weight of his hand against her head is comforting and warm.

“It is when it’s him,” she whispers.

“Is it now?” Malos hums.

Anna heaves another deep sigh, face curling up in her discomfort. She lifts her hand from her collarbone to run a palm over her chin, and then the rest of her face, restless and terrified as she stands in the wake of her future, something that should be so simple but manages to scare her as much as being alone in the wilderness after running away from _her home her village her friends and family all on fire nowhere to go no idea how to survive if she hadn’t found Malos—_

Malos’ fingers tighten in her hair for a moment. Anna blinks and tries to push that all back down.

“I’m so scared I’m gonna fuck it up,” she says, instead, about Kratos. “Because what if- what if I do something _wrong,_ and then- and then I _lose him_ —”

“That seems unlikely,” Malos counters, gentle.

“Yeah but it’s—” Anna starts, then breaks off, not sure how to say that she’s certain she only has one chance to get this right, not sure what it _means_ when she thinks that not only does she only have one chance, but is her last chance, in all of eternity, because if she fucks it up this time there is no next time around.

( _Even if she managed to find him again, why would he trust her again? And how would he feel, interacting with a reflection of her who has no memory of him? Wouldn’t he despise it?_ )

“Anna?” Malos asks, which means she’s been silent for a while and didn’t even realize it.

She swallows, dragging her hand down her face and letting it fall against her collarbone again, all of her thoughts heavy on her tongue. “It’s just- he’s- humanity’s hurt him _so much_ ,” she settles on, instead. Not quite the same fear, but also not _not_ part of it, either. “And _I’m_ human.”

Malos’ laugh is a little exasperated, this time. “I don’t think he cares,” he says.

“Doesn’t mean he trusts me.”

Malos doesn’t say anything.

Anna slowly digs her nails into the skin of her neck.

( _And she does_ not _think about the cold red eyes that haunt nightmares she does not remember, does_ not _think about the curl of anger on Kratos’ lips, does_ not _think about his voice playing back the condemnation of “and why should I trust you”s on repeat repeat repeat--_ )

Finally, Malos laughs. It’s exasperated, this time, confused. “What are you talking about?” he says. “Of _course_ he trusts you. I know you ain’t blind, Anna.”

She deliberately thinks of Kratos’ shy little smiles and the fact he keeps coming back, thinks about the embarrassed way his voice cracks half the time when she asks if it’s okay if she touches him and he says yes, like he’s still not used to people _doing_ that, she deliberately thinks about how he says yes _at all,_ thinks about the content little hum in his throat when she traces fingers over his ether lines and. It almost blots out the anxiety in her chest, almost makes her so full of her love for him that she combusts there on the spot, except that he _isn’t here_ right now, and anxiety is a black hole in her chest and—

“And- and even if he _does_ trust me,” she says, mouth taking her fears and running with them. “It’s like- it’s like a joke. Like a dream. Like any second now I’m gonna wake up and he’s gonna be gone, like he never existed in my life to begin with, and—”

( _And then what does she do? After so long of being apart—)_

Malos’ other hand finds hers and gently pulls it away from her neck so she’ll stop hurting herself, squeezing her fingers tight and reassuring. She squeezes her eyes shut, full of shame and the desire to _run_ even though she’s never run _away_ from something in her life and she doesn’t know what _good_ running would do her, anyway.

“You really that scared of losing him?” Malos asks, softly, slowly.

“I don’t think I could bear to lose him again.”

“…Again?”

Anna blushes. Grips Malos’ hand tighter in her embarrassment, because, she doesn’t _know,_ but. “I mean- I mean it sucks him being gone. For as long as he is, all the time,” she says, scrambling for _something_ that she can make sense of that isn’t just the nausea-making anxiety in her soul. “But. Imagine if he was never coming back. Imagine if he was never coming back and it was because of something I _said,_ or- or something I _did,_ because I walked all over him—”

“You wouldn’t do that,” Malos says, as she fumbles for more words.

“I could on accident!” Anna protests. “I’m not perfect. I fuck up a lot. I fuck up a lot of things a lot.”

“He’d forgive you.”

“Would he?”

Malos shifts just enough to send a look down at her, eyebrows raised and disapproving. “Anna,” he says. “It’s starting to sound like the problem here isn’t that maybe Kratos doesn’t trust you, but rather _you_ don’t trust _him_.”

Anna scowls and splutters, jolting upright so she can put her back to Malos and not have to look at him, even though the shock and discomfort that fills the emotion bleed is probably telling enough ( _especially since she isn’t thinking fast enough to try and make sure those signals_ don’t _get sent to Malos_ ). She hugs herself tight, arms digging against her chest, fingers clutching at her shoulders.

“Of- of _course_ I trust Kratos,” she insists, but it’s wobbly.

The emotion bleed from Malos’ end sings back—not smug, exactly, but satisfied in the way he gets when he knows he’s about to win an argument. “Then why don’t you trust he’s gonna come back?” Malos asks, and Anna flinches, drawing her legs up under her and hugging herself tighter. “Why don’t you trust that he’d forgive you? That maybe, just maybe, he loves you as much as you love him—”

“Shut up,” Anna says, heart clenching the minute Malos says _love,_ because that’s much too big for her to deal with right now. “Just- just _shut up._ ”

Malos doesn’t, of course he doesn’t. His gaze on her back is like fire. “If you don’t trust him, that’s a _pretty big problem_ , Anna.”

“I _do_ trust him,” Anna insists, with more conviction this time. “I do.”

“But?”

“...I don’t trust myself,” she whispers, eyes squeezed shut as she claws for the right words, wrestles to pin down the gaping void in her chest. “Or- Or I don’t- I don’t think I _deserve_ his trust—”

“Why not?” Malos presses, and it’s gentle rather than accusing, trying to help her hold her thoughts down.

“I don’t know,” Anna admits. She fidgets where she sits. “I don’t— Because I’m human? Because he hates humans? Because—”

( _Cold red eyes, sword pressed to her neck, “And why should I trust you?”_ )

“Maybe if you pulled your head outta your ass, you’d realize you’re spewing literal shit right now,” Malos tells her, and it’s loving but it’s also _deeply_ exasperated. Anna turns so she can shoot him a glare, and he just raises his eyebrows at her in the exact expression that says he thinks she has absolutely no room to argue.

“My head is _not_ up my ass,” she grumbles anyway, because these fears are _valid,_ she’s pretty sure, though she _is_ starting to feel like she’s going in circles with them and maybe blowing them out of proportion just a little, so she admits: “But I _did_ dig myself a hole and I just keep digging and I’m not any closer to getting out.”

Malos laughs, reaches out to tug her over to him. “See, Anna, that’s when you stop digging and _ask for help!_ ” he scolds as he noogies her gently. Anna wriggles out of it, but he pulls her into a hug before she can escape completely, one arm slung around her shoulders and all-but crushing her to his chest. 

“I know, I know!” Anna laughs along with him. “I guess I probably am just… scared for no reason.”

Malos kisses the top of her head. “I promise it’s _way_ less scary once you take the first step,” he insists, and she supposes he _would_ know. “And if it’s still scary after that, then you can always just… talk to him about it? Hash out the details. Figure out how it all fits together. Instead of, y’know, assuming what he’s thinking and making yourself anxious for no reason.”

She feels like she’s heard this advice before. She hates that she didn’t learn her lesson last time.

“You sure it’s legal to talk about feelings?” Anna asks, and Malos laughs.

“Even if it’s not, we’re already rebels, aren’t we?” he tells her, and she laughs in return.

“Guess so.”

Malos hums, and she _thinks_ he looks down at her hopefully, though she really can’t see his face when he’s hugging her head to his chest like this. The emotion bleed hums with a frequency of tentative hope that matches the tone of his voice, though, and he asks: “So… you’re gonna tell him, right?”

Anna groans a little, petulant to the very end. “Do I _gotta_?”

“I mean other than the fact that I _very literally will die if you don’t,_ ” Malos says, “I think if you put it off much longer you’re gonna run the risk of losing him just ‘cuz he didn’t realize he was wanted.”

“Oh,” Anna says, quiet.

That hadn’t occurred to her.

“So?” Malos asks.

“I’m not promising I’ll do it the minute he gets back,” Anna says. “But if I don’t get around to it by the time he leaves again you have permission to lock us in a room together.”

“Thank fuck.”

Kratos sighs long and deep, watching the rain fall through the window he’s resting his head and the entire right side of his body against. It’s one of the big windows in the library, one of the ones that takes up almost the whole wall, a little cushioned alcove nestled underneath for one to sit—which is where Kratos is sitting now. It has been raining for two straight weeks. There’s some kind of intense tropical storm on the coast, which the tower is just close enough to to feel the side-effects of, even if it is not in danger itself.

It certainly isn’t weather to travel in, though. Which means Kratos is stuck.

Usually he bounces between here and Anna’s in intervals of a month (give or take a week or two) spent at each place, and he’d intended to leave again for Anna’s about the time the rain started. He regrets not going anyway, that first day, when the rain hadn’t been heavy enough then to be more than just a minor inconvenience, and the winds weren’t yet blowing at dangerous speeds. Unfortunately, he’d decided to wait it out. And now here he is. Still waiting.

It’s strange, he notes, as he watches the rain fall in sheets and weighs the feelings that sing in his core. He thinks he feels homesick. Can one feel homesick for a place that is not technically their home?

Can one feel homesick for another person?

The fact he sees Mithos’ reflection in the window is the only reason he doesn’t startle when Mithos very abruptly places crossed arms on the top of Kratos’ head and leans on him, one foot perched on the cushion between Kratos’ back and the wall, the rest of his balance kept by wings that flutter like daylight, chunks of the bluest sky spread out like flower petals of pure light from Mithos’ back, if only the bluest sky were touched also with the emerald of tree leaves and moss in gentle swirls throughout it. Kratos cannot see Mithos’ expression either on his face or in reflection, seeing as Mithos’ chin is resting on his arms are resting on Kratos’ head, but five hundred years with his little brother makes the little cluck of his tongue and sigh that almost matches Kratos’ own clear to mean that Mithos is exasperated and probably bored and more than ready to cajole Kratos to relieve both of these things.

( _It’s a good day, so he doesn’t even really react to the fact Mithos is touching him. Some days, other days, he wonders—if it’s worth requesting that Mithos ask first, or not. Mithos is always good at reading when is and isn’t a good time, though. He’s never caught Kratos completely off guard, before. Maybe it’d just be silly to change their routine._ )

“Why are you sighing so _deep,_ Kratos?” Mithos asks, like it’s a great offense to have done so. “You sound like you’re _dying_.”

Kratos smiles, brief and fond, though his core isn’t fully in it, mind distracted by Anna whether he wants it to be or not. “I have never known either of us to be fond of cages, and rain makes a terrible prison,” he says.

Mithos groans. “Oh great, you _really_ need to get out, you’re starting to get _poetic._ ”

Kratos laughs and gently pushes Mithos off of him. “How are you doing?” he asks, a little concerned. It’s not like Mithos leaves the tower much anyway, but there’s still a difference between choosing to stay and not getting that choice. “Bored?” Kratos guesses.

Mithos hums in short agreement, fluttering in the air for a moment before he lets his wings fade and deposit him on his feet. “No more bored than I normally am, though,” he says, as he puts his hands on the seat and, using the purchase for balance, hops up and sits on the opposite end from Kratos. “What about you?” he asks, and then his tone gets dark and sharp with annoyance. “Worried about your human?”

Kratos scowls, directs it out the window instead of at Mithos. “She has a name,” he protests, quietly.

Mithos huffs. “Yeah, and honestly Kratos you’re making me _sick_ with how much you miss her right now, and we aren’t even in resonance anymore!!

“....is it that obvious?” Kratos asks, lifting his gaze to look at Mithos properly.

Mithos turns away from him, now. Legs folded under him, both hands gripping his crossed ankles, he bounces his knees a few times. Clearly, he’s agitated. About Anna? Kratos isn’t surprised, but the fond if painfully deep yearning he had been willing enough to endure earlier is now overshadowed by exasperation.

“I- Ugh,” Mithos says. “I don’t want to be having this conversation,” he declares, his nose turned up.

“You started it,” Kratos argues.

Mithos huffs again. Shoots Kratos a brief glare. “I just think you’re ridiculous!” he says, voice tight and pitched a little upwards. For someone who doesn’t want to be having this conversation, he sure has a lot to say. “What do you—I mean, why do you keep going back, huh? She’s _human_.”

“The whole village isn’t human,” Kratos argues, even though that’s not quite the point, here. “They make good company.”

“But it’s _her_ you miss.”

Well, that’s wrong, and it’s not. It _is_ Anna he misses, more than anything else. But he misses other things, too. He misses the dusty little town and the creaky step up to the porch to Anna’s house, he misses watching Patroka go head-to-head with anyone in the village who wants to spar, misses the atmosphere of Malik’s tavern and even the teasing. He could rattle off an entire list of people he’s eager to see and gently worried about ( _Sigurd and Mikhail near the top of that list, after Anna,_ ) if only Mithos would let him, but Mithos doesn’t care about any of that.

And Mithos is right, to pick out Anna first and foremost amongst all the things Kratos misses. Because he _does_ miss her, so much it aches persistently in his core. He misses her laughter and her bold jokes, he misses how comfortable he feels around her, how every second spent with her is new and exciting unless he doesn’t want it to be, in which case she’s happy to let him curl up on her couch and just _read,_ just _exist_ near her, and that’s nice too. He wants to hear her go on and on about all the things he missed while he was gone. Wants her to cajole him until he bets on her spar with Patroka, even though frankly he thinks betting on spars is absurd. He wants… to curl up with Anna on her couch, because it’s nice when he can stand the contact, he wants to hold her hand, wants to let her do that thing she does where she absently traces her fingers over his ether lines just because it gives her something to do…

Mithos raises his eyebrows at Kratos, and with a start Kratos pulls himself out of his thoughts, ducking his head down so his hair will hide his blush. Thankfully it has to be nearly pitch dark for the glow of it to be noticeable from where Mithos is sitting.

“Anna’s not like other humans,” Kratos protests, because it’s the only thing Mithos will care to hear.

“Sure,” Mithos says, rolling his eyes.

Kratos bristles, just a little. “She’s _not_ ,” he insists.

( _She isn’t. She cares about him. Cares about blades._

 _Goes out of her way to avoid hurting him._ )

“You really trust that?” Mithos counters, folding his arms across his chest and drawing himself high and mighty even though he’s sitting. Kratos reads right through it, knows Mithos is just fronting to distract from how uncomfortable he is, how off-kilter. “You really, honestly think that you can trust _her_?”

“Of course I do,” Kratos says.

She hasn’t given him reason not to.

In fact, she’s given him every reason otherwise.

“Hmph,” Mithos says, turning up his nose again, looking away. His knees bounce again, with his agitation. 

“You don’t have to trust her, Mithos,” Kratos assures him, gentle even if a little annoyed. “It is my choice. My life. I will spend it with who I wish.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mithos says, because obviously the last thing he’s going to do is rob Kratos of a choice. His mouth still curls in a sneer, though. “But your pining is _disgusting_.”

“If you are going to complain, you can leave,” Kratos tells him, simply.

Mithos might consider it, but he doesn’t. Instead he just swings his legs and shifts how he’s sitting, back pressed against the window and feet flat on the seat, knees up near his chest. He rests one arm across them, lazy, still scowling into the library rather than looking at Kratos. When he speaks, it still carries a touch of annoyance, but also a softness, a quiet disbelief. “Honestly, I never imagined _you_ falling in love,” he mutters, like it is both a wonder and an inconvenience.

Kratos blinks.

“I- I’m? I’m not,” he says. Or at least he’s never thought of it in those specific terms, before. But maybe he shouldn’t write it off. “I mean…”

Mithos turns and raises his eyebrows at him, daring him to argue, and that says more than any words from Mithos’ mouth could.

“Maybe I am,” Kratos admits.

Mithos sneers again, turns away.

“With a fucking _human_ , too,” he grumbles.

“Mithos,” Kratos begins, stern, though he doesn’t want to be having this argument still, again, constantly. 

Mithos hops off of the seat instead of letting Kratos continue. “Whatever,” he says, shoulders straight and back to Kratos. “Pine in peace, you bastard.”

“I will.”

Mithos leaves the library in a flutter of brilliant wings, and Kratos turns his attention back out the window. He turns the situation over in his head, weighing the feelings in his core again, pushing aside his exasperation for his brother so he can consider something that isn’t going to make him sour. He understands why Mithos is upset, of course, understands why Mithos is not eager to trust.

Is it so wrong, though? To pine, to love, to trust?

Yes, Anna is human, but she’s been kinder to him than even some blades have been, and she’s fun, and she’s wonderful, and… He likes how safe he feels, around her. How comfortable. She’s bright and beautiful and so _careful_ , too. Not that Kratos considers himself as fragile, nor would he wish to be treated as such.

But there’s something about Anna, about the care she takes with him… Something about it makes him feel not like he is fragile, but like he is treasured, precious, loved.

He aches for that more than he knows how to express.

He wonders if it’s about time he tells her he feels the same for her.

“Looks like I win this round,” Lora says.

She’s trying to sound all sympathetic but that smug smile isn’t fooling Anna. Anna sneers at her sister and rolls her eyes, shoving her hand of cards over so Lora can re-shuffle the deck. The two of them are sitting at a table they have outside in the center of town, because the weather’s nice—still cool from the rain that passed through, if a little humid—and sometimes Anna gets antsy if she’s been inside too long, anyway.

“Shut up,” Anna says, lovingly, as she glares and Lora just keeps smiling back.

“How many wins does that make?” Lora asks, like she’s forgotten, as she shuffles deftly.

“It doesn’t matter,” Anna insists. Five. It makes five wins to Anna’s three.

Lora raises her eyebrows like she _knows_ Anna’s been counting, and Anna fidgets, snatching her cards from Lora the moment they’ve been dealt to her. She scowls at her hand. No matches _again._ If she wasn’t well aware that Lora only cheats when Jin has a winning streak of literally unfair, she’d wonder if Lora was cheating right now. She still kind of wonders if Lora is cheating right now.

She draws a card. Scowls some more. Tries to decide what she’s going to discard when—

“Oh,” Lora says, bright and fond, all of a sudden. “Anna,” she says, somewhat urgent, somewhat eager. Anna hums, inquisitive, and looks up at her sister. Lora, eyes still fixed on something over Anna’s shoulder, beaming, just kind of nods and says: “Look.”

Anna twists around so she can, and then understands immediately.

_Kratos._

He sees that she sees him and waves, and Anna’s heart leaps right out of her chest, joy singing a song in her veins in her bones _oh she couldn’t be happier to see him, three months is way too long._ She tries to get to her feet but gets caught on the table because these built-in benches make leaping to one’s feet rather difficult. Before Anna can actually extricate herself, Kratos has gotten close enough to talk to, and he says—“No, go on, finish your round, I’m not in any rush.”

And then he sits down on the bench next to Anna.

Anna hesitates for a minute, not sure if that’s what she wants, kind of wanting to take Kratos and go—somewhere, anywhere. Though she’s not sure why, exactly, or what she intends to _do_ once they’re alone. ( _A voice in the back of her head that sounds like her dad’s tells her that probably telling Kratos about, you know, her feelings for him would probably be a good course of action_.) But Kratos is already sitting and, there’s no reason she can’t _wait_ if he’s fine with _waiting_ but she’s fucking _burning_ with—something. To do something. She doesn’t know.

But this is fine, this is fine. Anna slowly sits back down, then appreciates just how _close_ Kratos sitting to her, and habitually scoots so she’s not touching him, not sure if he meant to do that and too distracted to ask.

“You want me to deal you in?” Lora asks, already reaching towards the draw pile. “We only just started, so.”

“That’s alright,” Kratos interjects before Lora quite finishes. “I don’t mind watching.” His tone is casual, his smile soft, and Anna kind of wants to demand how dare he show up here all casual and act like it hasn’t been _three fucking months_ but then he

Scoots closer to her

So that their hips are pressed together and their thighs are touching

And for a moment Anna forgets how to breathe.

That action was so _deliberate_ that it had to have been intentional. It’s as good as a welcome home hug, better than that, because Kratos _initiated_ the touch and maybe that’s not really world-shakingly significant or anything but it _feels_ like it to Anna. She wonders if her hands weren’t currently occupied with her cards then he would have reached over to hold one. She kind of wants him to, anyway.

“You good?” Anna asks, and it’s mostly to double-check that he’s fine with touching her, though there’s no way she’s clear about that at all.

“Missed you,” Kratos mumbles, simple, leaning a little closer to bump their shoulders together, and it’s not a lot but it’s also so _endearingly needy_ that Anna’s heart about explodes.

Delighted and somewhat frustrated by how Kratos is making her feel right now, Anna spits: “Well, you shouldn’t have been gone for three months, then,” with absolutely no venom at all. She’s shaking she’s so full of her joy. She wishes Lora would stop _smiling at her like that._

“I didn’t enjoy it any more than you did,” Kratos argues, quiet and somewhat petulant, which is a lilt to his words that she’s _never heard before._ “But the rain was so bad I couldn’t even leave the tower for a month. Certainly it wasn’t safe to travel.”

“Mik said he heard about the storm on the coast. Nasty thing, from the sounds of it,” Lora agrees, nodding wisely. “It was smart to stay home.”

“I still missed being here,” Kratos tells her, and then because apparently Lora took her turn while Anna wasn’t paying attention, he reaches over and draws a card for Anna. “Here,” he says.

Anna fumbles to take the card, then blinks at it, unseeing. She goes to just discard it immediately, but—

“Wait, wait,” Kratos says. “Keep that, look.” And then he points out the run of three it’ll complete if she keeps it. So she does, puts it into her hand and reorganizes the cards so she can remember that run exists, and Kratos plucks a card out of her hand and discards it for her. If Lora minds the somewhat blatant cheating, she doesn’t say anything.

Anna does her best to focus on the game after that, but to say she succeeded would be to lie. As it turns out, it’s _very_ hard to focus when the man you love so much it makes you jittery is sitting right next to you after three months of absence, and almost _impossible_ to focus when said man is also being _clingy._ Her body focuses on drinking in every inch of Kratos that’s pressed up against her, while her mind spins dizzy with the fact she didn’t even know Kratos was _capable_ of being clingy. Just when she _finally_ has her thoughts mostly on the excitement of how it looks like she might actually win this round, Kratos puts his hand on her knee and all of her coherent thought immediately throws itself out the window.

She’s so focused on the way Kratos’ fingertips dig gently into her skin, the way his wrist rests on top of her thigh, that the only reason she wins this round is because Kratos was basically playing for her.

“Good game,” Lora says, brightly, and Anna still thinks that smile is a _little too knowing,_ but she doesn’t comment as she forks her cards over for Lora to take and slide back into their pack with the rest of the deck. “I promised Patroka I’d spar with her sometime this afternoon, though, so I should go find her,” Lora says, getting to her feet.

Anna kind of wants to say _shut up_ or _fuck you_ , but there’s no way Kratos read that as a ‘ _I’ll buzz off so you can spend some Alone Time with your crush’_ as loudly as Anna did, so Anna just glares daggers which, based on the self-satisfied smirk Lora flashes back, does its job.

Anna thinks about asking Lora for the card deck, since it makes more sense for _her_ to put it away, seeing as Lora’s supposedly going to go find Patroka to spar, but Kratos says “Have fun,” to Lora and then puts his hand on Anna’s shoulder to help himself to his feet and Lora’s gone before Anna even realizes she didn’t even open her mouth.

“Well, where to?” Kratos asks, smiling easy, eyes burning with a laid-back sort of anticipation. “Your house?”

Anna must be out of it if _he’s_ the one making decisions right now.

“Yeah, sure,” she manages to say, at least. She thinks about saying that she has something she wants to talk to Kratos about, anyway, but he grabs her hand and squeezes it in the silence before she can get the words out, and that train of thought just stops existing in the station at all. “Sounds good,” she says instead, and starts pulling him along.

( _It’s probably a good thing Lora took the deck of cards. Anna would have forgotten they existed before she even got them put away._ )

“Are you alright?” Kratos asks, turning to send her a vaguely concerned look as they walk. “You seem distracted.”

“I’m always distracted,” Anna counters, and Kratos laughs.

“More than normal,” he corrects.

Anna hums, as she tries to figure out how to articulate this. “You’re being clingy,” she says, quiet.

“Oh,” Kratos says, and his grip on her hand _loosens._ Anna hastily squeezes, holds on tight. “Is… that a problem?”

“No, no!” Anna assures him, quickly. She turns just enough to send him her most earnest look. “I promise, it’s not. I like it! A lot!” More than she has words to express without sounding grossly sappy, honestly. “It’s just distracting.”

“ _Oh,_ ” Kratos says, again, and it’s with such a clear note of understanding that Anna wonders if she hasn’t just made a grave mistake in handing him this knowledge. If he knows it’s _this_ easy to distract her—how often is he going to use that to his advantage? ( _She hates that she kind of wants him to. Like a lot._ )

They don’t get to talk any more than that, because everyone who didn’t catch Kratos coming into town stops him to say hi now, which based on the way his hand tightens kind of desperately on Anna’s and the way his sentences get shorter and shorter he can really only handle so much of. Anna loves him for that, even as she has to slide into diffuse things for him. It’s cute, and there’s really no reason to blame him. ( _Sig’s the same way, unless he’s drunk._ ) So: it takes them longer than Anna thinks either of them were really prepared or capable of waiting for to get to her house.

Anna herself is thrumming with a restless, aimless kind of energy, wanting _something_ but still not sure what ( _well, a little bit sure what, but completely uncertain if those are things Kratos is okay with_ ). She’s had to let go of Kratos’ hand to get the door open and closed again, and she knows no one else is home, it’s just them, and. And. What she should probably do is talk to Kratos, huh. Since she promised Malos she would. And since Kratos needs to know. And since she’s pretty sure she’s not going to _stop_ being restless and kind of anxious until she does, though it’s hard to say whether it’s nerves that have her wound up like this or the fact that Kratos _keeps touching her,_ casual and easy like he never does, some of the touches lingering and a little desperate like he’s starved for it ( _but it takes him, what, three days? Alone? To get here? If he’s starved for company, for touch, it’s really no wonder_ ) and it’s _doing things to her_ and she doesn’t know what to _do_ with that. Loving him is easy if terrifying, but _wanting_ him—

“Anna?” Kratos asks, and _fuck_ how long have they just been standing here in the middle of the living room while her thoughts spun, why didn’t he _sit down._

“Right,” Anna says, face hot with embarrassment and something else, she thinks. “Um,” she says. Talking to Kratos. That’s a good place to start. But before that, because it always makes conversations easier. “Coffee?” she asks, and turns to Kratos.

And then she realizes just how _close_ he got when she wasn’t paying attention. His hands find her arms as she turns to face him all the way, fingers trailing up her skin, and Anna’s breath catches in her throat. He looks… fond, a little nervous. Anna realizes what’s happening a second before it does and her heart _swells_ with joy and anticipation and

Then Kratos is kissing her.

In the spaces of her mind that aren’t thinking _holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit_ she tries to piece together when the fuck he got good at this, because she’s pretty sure he mentioned that he’s never, before, that like relationships weren’t a thing he’d ever done and given how he is about touch she sort of kind of doubts that he’s had any kind of experience with _kissing,_ either _,_ but. But maybe. Maybe kissing is one of those things—like fighting—that blades don’t actually forget how to do, between lifetimes, because muscle memory stays when everything else doesn’t—

And then she stops thinking about that at all because the parts of her brain that aren’t going _holy shit holy shit holy shit_ get distracted by the way Kratos’ hand finds the back of her head and pulls her closer, the desperate way he clings to her arm like he doesn’t want to let her go, and it’s _really good,_ so much so that pretty soon there’s not a single part of her brain that _isn’t_ screaming _holy shit holy shit holy shit._

Kratos breaks off too soon, Anna thinks, but she’s dizzy and breathless so maybe that’s alright, actually, for now. She leans into him, one hand gripping the arm he’s got locked against hers, her other hand not sure if she wants to touch his hip or grab his belt, way too distracted by the flustered way he ducks his head down and the way his cheeks _glow_ with his blush. She’s never been close enough to see him _glow_ before, since he doesn’t glow as brightly as other blades do. Architect, it’s the cutest fucking thing. Anna thinks she might explode.

“Um,” she says, words failing her.

“Sorry, I suppose I. should have asked if that was okay, first,” Kratos says, in something that is somehow both halting and in a rush. He won’t make eye-contact with her. She wants him to, more than anything.

She squeezes his arm. Her other hand finally settles on his chest, leaning as close to him as she can, and hastily she says: “No, no, no please that was fine, don’t.” Don’t apologize. Don’t overthink it. She can’t get either of those things out before she just keeps talking, wanting to make sure he knows: “Holy shit, that was more than okay. I’m. I’m so happy, right now.”

He laughs, soft and kind of nervous. “Good,” he whispers, and nothing else.

Anna stands on her toes so she can reach him better. “Can I?” she asks.

“Please,” he says.

So she kisses him again.

It’s still _so good,_ her heart pounding in her throat, Kratos’ fingers knotting in her hair. Anna tries to take some initiative with this kiss, tries to recall what she and Mik figured out, back when they were messing around with kissing and things, years ago. But before she really gets the chance to put any of that into practice, Kratos is pulling away.

“Hold on,” he says, and Anna stops everything and pulls a little back herself, not sure if he means that as a _stop touching me_ or something else. His voice sounded gentle, free of panic, so it’s probably not about touch, but—She loosens her grip on his arm, anyway, so if he _has_ to push her away he _can…_

But what he actually does is twist his head just enough to judge where the couch is, and then he pulls her closer again, tugs her with him as he steps back, sits down, and all there is to do then is fall into his lap.

Anna almost brackets his hips with her knees, but there’s something about that that’s just a _little_ too much, too fast, right now, so instead she sits in Kratos’ lap instead, hip to his stomach and knees folded to the side. He wraps an arm around her waist, his other hand idly playing with her hair. His smile is soft but wide, eyes scanning her face like he wants to take in every detail, and she wants to let him more than anything, she wants to enjoy every inch of him being here, right now, of this _happening,_ but—

“Is this—fine?” she asks, a little nervous because even though his good days rarely stop being good days without something _really horrible_ happening, she doesn’t want to overwhelm him or touch him in a way he doesn’t like and all she can do is ask, so she’s asking.

He laughs, soft and unbearably fond, and Anna wants to drown in it, wants to bury herself in this moment, of Kratos smiling at her like she’s everything. “Yes,” he says, and that hand playing with her hair slides upwards, fingers pressing against her scalp as he pulls her in again. “C’mere,” he mumbles, against her lips, and so Anna does, letting him kiss her because that’s all she wants.

The way Kratos kisses is shy but deliberate, and utterly maddening. Anna can’t decide if he’s just trying to feel things out, and if he is then does she care? She doesn’t think she does. It’s intoxicating, the little pauses for air and so he can shift his head before kissing her again, like he’s trying to memorize every potential angle he can kiss her from and how each angle can taste. Anna lets him, more than happy to, so full of her happiness that she thinks she might scream, except there are much better things to be doing with her mouth, right now.

She feels completely alight, kind of jittery, the warmth of Kratos’ skin kindling a fire in her bones, delighted and giggling and a little desperate as she learns the shape of his mouth, commits it to her memory, because she never ever ever ever wants to forget it. ( _Not again._ ) It feels a little like being found after being lost for years and years and years, an ache in her soul finally abating, finally healing with each touch Kratos drags longingly down her skin.

“I love you,” Anna whispers, in a space between kisses, warm and gentle against his mouth. There’s probably no way he hasn’t gotten that idea yet, but she needs to say it anyway, doesn’t she?

Kratos turns his face just so he can speak a little better, but: “I love you too,” he says, as easy as if he’s breathing and.

Oh.

It would that easy, wouldn’t it?

Anna laughs, short and surprised and _relieved,_ feeling more stupid than she’s ever felt before. Despite all her terror and hesitation, it really was _that easy._ Malos was right, and she’s an idiot, and. She keeps laughing, sliding slowly out of Kratos’ lap because _she_ needs the space to think, needs a moment before she can just lose herself in kissing him again.

“Anna?” Kratos asks, and she’s not sure if it’s concerned or confused.

“Sorry, sorry,” she says, still laughing, a hand pressed to her face. Her cheeks are hot against her palm, and she’s _grinning,_ still kind of breathless. She drags her hand down, doesn’t look at Kratos right away. “I just—I’m dumb,” she tells him.

“Hmm,” Kratos says, and it’s definitely fond, if a little baffled. Anna drops her hand and looks too him, too curious to not, having _missed him too much_ to not. His brow is furrowed with his confusion, but that’s… _cute,_ actually, and his face is almost as red as his hair, cheeks still glowing softly. Maybe she should just kiss him again—“And what makes you say that, because I might have to disagree with you,” he says, distracting her. Probably for the best.

“Just…” Anna says, shaking her head, laughing again. She finds Kratos’ hand and locks their fingers together, wanting to hold onto him in some way or another. “I really am,” she insists. “I’ve spent probably _six months_ sitting on this—but.”

But it was also a little more than just being worried her feelings wouldn’t be returned, wasn’t it? She gets lost in the weeds of figuring that out, figuring out how to pin that _down,_ and so:

“Anna?” Kratos asks, turning to her, gentle.

She ducks her head down, the blush in her cheeks more like shame now than the joy it was before. “Just—I love you,” she tells him, breathing deep and finding his face again. “And I’ve needed to say that for, like, a real long time.”

Kratos shrugs, easy, his smile content. “You were pretty good at showing it,” he tells her, eyes gleaming.

“Ah,” Anna says, because first of all _what the fuck,_ he can’t just _say that._ Second of all holy shit she really is dense as fuck if Kratos was well aware of this long before now. A little flustered and not sure how to cope with that, Anna whines: “What the _fuck,_ don’t be sweet? That’s not allowed?”

Kratos laughs, like he doesn’t believe that she minds. ( _Good, because she doesn’t, except she does, she_ hates _being flustered._ )

“I love you,” he says, persistent in his fondness, and Anna squirms where she sits, grinning but…

“No, seriously,” she protests. “I really have needed to say it for a long time. But I was just… afraid of. Architect. This is gonna sound so stupid.”

Kratos hums, fond. “Well, why don’t you tell me and then let me be the judge of that.”

Anna makes a face, squirms a little more. She’s so _incredibly_ grateful Kratos hasn’t thought to reach over and touch her any more than he is right now because if he did she wouldn’t be able to hold her thoughts down long enough to wade through her embarrassment. She kind of wishes she could just Not, but Malos was probably right when he said just _talking_ about it was a good idea, because that’s what she and Kratos do anyway, right? Ask. Double check. Make sure.

So.

“I was just afraid of fucking something up,” she says, in a rush.

Kratos tilts his head at her, clearly confused. “What… could you possibly fuck up?” he asks. Despite his confusion he’s so _relaxed,_ right now, Anna realizes. That’s maybe more intoxicating than the lingering taste of his lips. She fidgets, tells herself she can kiss him again _after_ she’s got this out.

“I _don’t know_ ,” she admits, whining a little. Because it was always hard to pin down what exactly could go wrong, only easy to anticipate how horrible it could be in the aftermath, in which she would never see him again and he would never trust her again and _she couldn’t handle that possibility._ “But I was afraid of. I guess. Maybe that you wouldn’t. Like. Feel the same?”

“Oh,” Kratos says, quiet, and that smile on his face slowly pulls downward with regret that makes Anna’s fluttery heart immediately clench to see. “I suppose I probably wasn’t very good at…”

And that’s as far as she can let him get. “No, no!” she insists, rapidly. “It wasn’t on your end, I promise, I was just being blind and dense and _overthinking things,_ which I like never do except when it’s the worst fucking time to—”

“What were you overthinking about?” Kratos interjects, gentle, to get her back on track. He isn’t smiling quite as easy as he was before, but at least he looks more concerned than regretful right now.

“It was dumb,” Anna says, again, because she’s pretty sure it was.

“Somehow I doubt that.”

Anna sighs. Runs her thumb up and down his slowly as she tries to wrestle her thoughts and her shame both to the floor. “I dunno, just… that I don’t deserve it,” she mumbles, staring at her knees instead of at him.

“…my _love_?” Kratos asks, and the _incredulous_ tone he says it in makes Anna laugh, then shake her head.

“No, no,” she whispers. “Your trust.”

“Oh.”

Anna shrugs, eyes still glued to her knees. “I mean, why _would_ you trust me?” she asks, her chest heavy with the question despite how light it had felt just minutes ago when Kratos’ lips were in her mouth, despite the way Kratos tightens his grip on her hand like he isn’t going to let her pull away. “Humanity’s put you through a lot of shit, and _I’m_ human, and—”

( _he will never—_ )

“You’re different,” Kratos interrupts.

It rings out loudly in her head, throws her a little off-kilter. She should be grateful for it, accept it, but she hesitates, uncertain.

“You’re always saying that…”

“Because it’s true.”

She looks up at him without really looking up at him, twisting her head just enough to send a sidelong, confused look at him. “…is it?” she asks.

And Kratos smiles, ducks his head down a little like he does when he’s embarrassed, but he squeezes her hand and he speaks, anyway, he says: “You care about me,” all soft and gentle, like he thinks that a treasure. “You go out of your way to make sure I feel safe and comfortable around you. So. Yes. I trust you.”

_I trust you._

_I trust you._

_I trust you._

And it’s… it’s just _that._ Just that, and nothing more. Three little words, seemingly insignificant, but they’re _everything_ to Anna, somehow. Absolutely everything. Like a weight off her shoulders. Like she can finally breathe. He trusts her. Kratos Aurion, the blade that humanity betrayed, trusts her. Her, of all people, of all humans.

( _He still trusts her._ )

“H,” Anna says, and can’t say anything else, all words completely failing her.

Kratos laughs, head tilted, tone gently teasing. “Is it really that surprising?” he asks.

“I,” Anna tries, and keeps fumbling. “I mean, no?” Because it’s not surprising, not when he says it like that, not when he gives those reasons for why he does. But it’s still winded her completely, somehow, completely ripped the floor out from under her, and it’s alright because there’s a very beautiful comfortable pile of trust for her to fall in underneath the floor, but entirely overwhelming, nonetheless.

_He trusts her._

Kratos pries his hand out of hers, shifts it just enough so he can trace his fingers over the skin of her knee again, fingers dragged slowly up her thigh and then pushed back down, lingering. It’s distracting, but not quite louder than the anxiety in her veins, because even though it is a _relief_ that he trusts her, it is also something like a promise, a promise she cannot afford to break. She wraps her hands around his arm and clings to him, leaning close, burying her face in his shoulder.

“Anna?”

“I just don’t want to fuck it up,” she whispers.

“You won’t,” he reassures her, gentle, face twisted so he can press a kiss into her hair.

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes I do.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do,” he repeats, firmer. “After all, I’m the one doing the trusting, aren’t I?”

Anna laughs, weakly, but he’s right. Both in that this is something for him to decide, and that _realistically,_ she’s not the kind of person who would do something terrible to him on purpose, and probably isn’t capable of doing anything horrible on accident, either. That’s enough, isn’t it? Even if she can’t trust herself, she can trust him, can’t she?

And he trusts her.

( _Somehow, impossibly, beautifully, he trusts her._ )

Anna breathes a shaky breath, then turns her head so she can look Kratos in the face.

“Can you kiss me again?” she asks.

He smiles so wide he might as well have grinned.

“Of course,” he says.

And he does.

And the universe lets out the breath it had been holding for hundreds of years.


End file.
